Convergence: A reality in Africa or not?

Separate phone, data and Internet systems mean expensive and inefficient communications - as businesses in Africa are slowly starting to realise.

Converged communications is a reality for information workers and consumers in Europe, Asia and North America. Information workers on these continents enjoy the ability of being connected - anywhere and anytime. In turn, consumers can access a wide array of IP services and applications from their mobile devices. Convergence has become part of their everyday office and home lives.

Although convergence is widely adopted in European countries, Africa is still lagging behind. "Due to poor fixed-line network infrastructure in most African counties, the advantages of next-generation networks (NGN) and services are still to be realised. We have, however, seen wide adoption of VOIP services and IP telephony deployments in Africa," says Alpheus Mangale, Chief Technology Officer at Dimension Data South Africa.

Most African countries, such as South Africa, have only recently experienced deregulation of their telecommunication industries, resulting in an increase in service providers entering the market.

"We have seen some encouraging progress on the continent where some countries have launched broadband initiatives and rolled out IP networks and new fibre optics links. Operators are now planning to launch converged triple-play (voice, data and video) services, and WiMax technology is also being rolled out," says Mangale.

He reiterates that deregulation and sufficient Internet bandwidth are not the only criteria that will ensure adoption of convergence. The challenge lies in educating (end) users on the benefits and advantages of convergence. As an example, organisations deploying IP telephony will not maximise the value of their investments if employees only use the IP handsets to make telephone calls.

"Converged integrators, such as Dimension Data, have a huge role to play in educating South Africans and thereby ensuring the adoption of convergence," he says.

Mangale explains that converged communications essentially consists of two distinct elements - a converged network and a converged client. This is distinctly different from traditional networks, which are architected mainly from a physical perspective, with (end) devices limited to hosts or servers on one side of the scale and data terminals or personal computers on the other end.

The converged network includes a multitude of different technologies including broadband, traditional LAN switching elements, as well as new wireless technologies such as WiFi, GSM, GPRS and 3G/UMTS. In some cases even satellite and VHF/UHF radio links are included. The pure bandwidth characteristics across these technologies vary widely.

The converged client is a collection of multiple clients, typically including an office phone, a personal computer and a mobile phone, with an increasing number of users adding a PDA.

"This is bound to change, especially for the devices that lend themselves to mobility, with a trend towards one or maybe two converged clients as a mobile device," says Mangale.

He continues that once businesses are readily adopting convergence, Africa will follow in the footsteps of trends in Europe and North America to focus on consolidating converged technologies. "The converged client will mostly consist of the office phone moving to the PDA, leaving most users with two converged clients (a personal computer and a mobile device), both of which can support the applications relevant to the user in real-time," says Mangale.

Mangale explains that once convergence is adopted by African businesses, they will reduce their total communications costs, with the ability to run multiple services over a common platform without needing dedicated networks. Converged companies are also more mobile and productive as employees are not limited by traditional communications barriers.

In addition, organisations utilising IP services and applications notice an immediate improvement in the efficiency, productivity and cost of operations. "The benefits of convergence are generally experienced throughout an organisation, and also extend to customers. To the CEO of a business, convergence means a more efficient management of information and clients. For the sales force, communication between customers and the office will be easier and more productive," concludes Mangale.

All successful technology trends are driven by market forces, including demand, standardisation and competition. Converged networks are no exception, says Mangale.

Corporate demand for greater business agility, reduced costs and more resilient business continuity has led to key technology trends that drive enterprises to the converged network future. These trends are summarised as follows:

Trend 1: Convergence
Convergence is one of the most widely used and, ironically, misunderstood terms today. At its most basic level, convergence is relatively simple - it's what you get when you combine Internet Protocol (IP) and business communications.

The success of IP - as well as other significant standards such as XML and Web services - enables companies to derive true business benefit from their IT systems; benefits that have been elusive in the past due to the lack of standards and the inherent complexity in deploying and maintaining proprietary systems.

Historically, IT vendors have tried to protect their proprietary technology for competitive reasons. However, the benefits of standardisation - making systems simple to deploy, integrate and support - has created enormous market pressure for this. As a result, technology vendors have acknowledged this reality and today we see former "enemies" working together to jointly develop and ratify standards, to unprecedented levels. This is why we have seen remarkably successful standardisation initiatives in recent years that have enabled the new world of converged networks.

Trend 2: Virtualisation
Virtualisation is another trend that requires more definition. In fact, a true understanding of this concept will also unlock a better understanding of the benefits delivered by standards-based technology.

At its most basic level, virtualisation is all about changing physical relationships. This can range from creating relationships where none previously existed - such as with storage virtualisation, where the storage resources of multiple disparate devices are shared and managed as a single logical pool; or by eliminating physical relationships to increase efficiency, such as using IP telephony to enable "virtual contact centres" in which customer service representatives can be distributed across the globe.

Virtualisation enables benefits such as improved worker productivity and business continuity, since the communications infrastructure is as resilient as the Internet itself.

Trend 3: Service-oriented architecture
Convergence and virtualisation are enabling and driving a new IT architecture where each element becomes a "service", and services can be re-used and shared. This architecture is known as service-oriented architecture (SOA).

The SOA applies not only to business communications, but encompasses the entire IT architecture, including applications. These services can be invoked on an as-needed basis to support business processes, which means that the role of IT departments changes from one of "deploying and managing discrete applications and systems," to "support business processes".

The SOA is not a new concept. Any distributed component architecture is an SOA. However, there is a key standard that is making SOA practical for the first time, and that standard is Web services. Web services provides a relatively simple way for systems to inter-operate, so that specific services can be called on at exactly the right time to support business processes.

Thus, any discussion about the SOA today brings with it a presumption of a Web services-based messaging infrastructure. Prior attempts at SOA, using quasi-standards such as CORBA, largely failed thanks to the complexity, expense and lack of true standards. SOA today, however, is emerging as the standard next-generation enterprise IT architecture, due to the success of Web services as a standard. Once again, architecture drives the standard, and the standard drives the architecture.

Trend 4: Market deregulation
With its relatively well-developed and diverse infrastructure, South Africa is taking a regional leading role in the convergence of telecommunication and information technologies on the African continent.

Sweeping liberalisation measures enforced by the government in 2005, legalising, among other things, the use of VOIP, holds the promise of changing the country's telecommunications landscape fundamentally. Telecommunications service providers have already started to provide ICT services and Internet service providers (ISPs) are turning into phone companies, and vice versa. Both are moving towards delivering audio and video content over their networks, while in turn, the traditional electronic media carriers are discovering the potential of their infrastructure for telecommunications service delivery.

To deploy converged communications systems that can support enterprise and user demands, organisations need to travel on a journey. The road to be travelled is long, but the end destination rich with rewards - if you travel with a partner you can trust.

Designing converged communications systems requires extensive knowledge of traditional networks, the associated technology and protocols, as well as knowledge of the demands IP applications and services will place on network resources. More importantly, to ensure that organisations gain maximum value from their investment, systems integrators need to have a thorough understanding of matching technologies to an organisation's business requirements.

"Dimension Data has built more than 2 000 IP networks all over the world. Our collective understanding and delivery aspects of converged communications make us a leader in this market. We are one of only a few companies that can claim to be a true global integration partner for converged communications, and with the ability to address the business requirements of multinational and large national clients," says Anna Watson, Marketing Manager at Dimension Data.

Utilising global experience and local talent, Dimension Data has dedicated business units focused on networking, security, operating environments, data centre and storage, interactive media, advanced infrastructure and contact centre technologies. "We draw from our experience across our business, and also from Internet Solutions (IS), a Dimension Data company, to ensure that companies integrate and maximise the value a converged network has to offer," says Watson.

She continues that Dimension Data's history with convergence started when it opened its doors more than 20 years ago. "We used our extensive understanding of networks and IP to integrate technologies to provide cost savings and agility for our customers, even before converged networks became top of mind," says Watson.

Today, Dimension Data also draws from the strengths of IS to extend its converged communications offering. "Internet Solutions is a valuable asset to the Dimension Data Group. We are now able to offer a full range of converged communications solutions to fulfil customers' business requirements. IS's infrastructure, bandwidth and support services enable people and businesses to share information and interact with one another - anywhere, at any time, over any protocol," says Watson.

Dimension Data's converged communications solutions leverage customers' existing investments and new technologies to provide measurable business returns through operational cost savings. The portfolio of the converged communications solutions includes:

* Communications consulting
Dimension Data's roadmap for IP convergence (IPC) delivers critical direction required by companies that wish to integrate and maximise the value that IP has to offer.

* Managed service for IP telephony
Our long history of expertise in remote monitoring and management of networks, coupled with the more than 2 000 IP networks and 330 000 IP handsets that we have installed, make us the integrator and service provider of choice for IP telephony.

* Integrated collaboration solutions
Through Dimension Data's alliances with global vendors such as Microsoft and Cisco, our unique experience in IP networks and the strengths of Internet Solutions, we are able to blend all communication methods or media - instant messaging, e-mail, voice mail, fax, telephone conversations, video conferencing, mobile telephony, - on a single IP infrastructure to deliver true converged communications solutions.