Converging communications 2009

indepth
THE CONVERGENCE LANDSCAPE

From the time the first humans noticed that the stone they’d been using to bash rivals over the head with had a nice sharp edge that could be used for scraping shellfish off rocks if you strapped a handle to it, people have been looking for ways to combine the best qualities of our most useful technologies into one all encompassing tool.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS


With the 2010 FIFA World Cup on the horizon and Telkom’s divestment of Vodacom, the telecoms landscape in South Africa is enjoying as much of a rollercoaster ride as ever. From carrier pre-select and Local Loop Unbundling, co-location, new players and new cables, perhaps the only really predictable thing in this sector is that there won’t be any shortage of bones of contention.

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NETWORKING

Networking has always been about capacity. The amount of data you can usefully shift is only as good as the pipes carrying it and with traffic volumes growing exponentially, it’s fair to say that backbone providers the world over are struggling to cope.

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MOBILE

Fashion accessory and status symbol it may be to many, but the mobile phone – and the services that come with it – is a vital business tool as well as a crucial driver of revenue in sectors as diverse as entertainment and business applications.

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WIRELESS

As technology becomes increasingly driven by the demands of convergence, wireless is at the heart of a genuinely symbiotic relationship.

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CLOUD COMPUTING

If ever a technological development could be seen to underline the mantra that the network is the computer, cloud computing is it.

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ISPS AND VANS

While the first decade of South Africa’s Internet history was about a segmented market of corporate and dial-up users, we have since entered a market promising a radical new mix of services carried (hopefully) on long-awaited new infrastructure.

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CONTACT CENTRES

The long-awaited transformation of South Africa’s telecommunications sector is well underway.

special focus
WEB2.0

 

With all the hype and talk surrounding Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and anything that carries the merest whiff of “social media” doing the rounds, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re simply floating through the next big bubble.

special focus
SECURITY

With all the hype and talk surrounding Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and anything that carries the merest whiff of “social media” doing the rounds, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re simply floating through the next big bubble.