Log in ....Tribune


Dot.ComLatest in ITFree DownloadsOn hardware

Monday, June 10, 2002
Lead Article

Convergence of intelligent options

It means various things to different people the world over, but even in India, especially in the metros, computer users are getting new services and making innovative use of those opportunities, while bandwidth is becoming more available at inexpensive rates, says Roopinder Singh


A
young girl threw away her school bag and had a quick bite before she was allowed to go to the computer and surf. "I just don't know how to deal with it, she is at the computer all the time," said Jyoti, her mother. "But mom, I am doing my homework, look at this moving display of the human body," said the child, who is a student of class five in New Delhi.

ILLUSTRATION BY GAURAV SOOD

The Net has come a long way and it was just over a decade and a half ago that, when I was a student in the USA, I would usually approach a certified 'nerd' to research some material on the Net. The fees would be negotiated (generally a six-pack) and he would get me dot-matrix printouts of data that I would pour over.

Those days information on the Net was accessible to only a tiny minority, and it was not an easy task navigating the World Wide Web. In fact, the first browser was named Navigator, because it made the whole exercise easier. Those were the days when ultra-fast modems were 14.4 kbps, what you usually saw was only text-only rarely would you come across a graphic, that too grainy.

 


Sachi, the class V student, now uses a computer that is of the kind supercomputers were supposed to be those days; she uses a cable connection to access the Net and views sites that extensively use multimedia-video and sound as well as text. The connection is blazingly fast and the material much more interestingly presented.

There used to be a time when text was for the Net, sound for Walkmans and video for TV. Now the boundaries between the three are merging. The occurrence of two or more things coming together is called convergence.

In information technology, convergence is a term for the combining of personal computers, telecommunication, and television into a user experience that is accessible to everyone. Thus convergence is the coming together of the telecommunication infrastructure to provide services such as cable television, basic telephone services and Internet access services through a single infrastructure.

In the USA, an estimated 30 per cent of homes have computers with modems. Virtually, 100 per cent of homes have a TV set. Studies show a large number of TV users who would embrace the Internet, video-on-demand, and greater interaction with content, are not confident about buying and using a personal computer because of a certain intimidation factor in using it. Now, both the computer and the television industries are trying to take digital TV and the Internet to a larger market.

India is not far behind the West, especially in terms of connectivity, as least in the metros. An increasing number of people are exercising the option to get the cable connection for their Net, which gives them the bandwidth to handle convergence. And it does not cost too much, Rs 1,500 per month, and declining; in certain areas of Delhi it is as low as Rs 800. And the speed is 10 to 12 times that obtainable through regular modems.

However, convergence is not simply an issue of technology, but also of culture and lifestyle. Generally speaking, TV is visual and it is not interactive-unless you count channel surfing. It is oriented primarily toward entertainment and news. Nowadays, many TVs have large screens and are easy to operate.

On the other hand, personal computers, in spite of their graphical user interfaces (GUI), tend to be more text-oriented, highly interactive, oriented in terms of purpose and content toward business and education uses. In most cases, computer screens are smaller and using them does take more intelligence than using a TV set.

One of the ways in which convergence is already seen is WebTV, which pipes the World Wide Web to a slightly-modified TV set with a set-top box from an ordinary phone line and provides a degree of interactivity. Then there are a number of interactive games designed for the TV environment that can also be played over the Internet. Broadcasting companies such as NBC have partnered with computer companies such as Microsoft for TV content.

A major barrier to more rapid convergence is the large investment required to bring such cable TVs to households, both by cable access providers and individual households. Thus it is limited to areas in which there is high degree of demand, and as such it is only available in pockets. This is certainly a limitation, but one that time and rising demand can solve quite easily.

Basically, bandwidth charges are decreasing all over the world and this means that more and more people will be able to make full use of convergence. What does this mean to you and me?

In short, better services, more service-oriented functions rather than gadget-oriented ones. Thus, if you need a service, you would have a device perform it for you. In a way, this is a sweeping change since for many years users have been almost subconsciously operating in a gadget-centric mode-the device dictates the service parameters.

At one level, convergence between computing and telephony can be seen in VoIP.

Most computer users are now familiar with VoIP, using which people are making long distance calls inexpensively through the Internet. When bandwidth permits, Webcams are also used to convey rudimentary video images over the Web.

A major cellular service provider in the region has its unified messaging system (UMS), which lets all its subscribers read, hear, send and manage their e-mails and voice messages from their mobile phones. They have text-to-speech converters that read out your e-mails to you. For a fax, they are intimated about its arrival and can retrieve it from the nearest convenient fax machine. Also, you can send a voice attachment to any e-mail address in the world, so that people can hear your message on their multimedia computers. All new computers, and most of the old ones, are multimedia machines.

To get back to Jyoti, the lady in Delhi, the other day she watched her mother in Bangalore over Webcam make halva to demonstrate how it was done to her other daughter in San Francisco. The mother was guiding the cooking process from India while the daughter was learning to make the halva in the USA! The time spent on the Net was not an issue as it was a 24-hour connection.

But this kind of innovation is at the end of the users. In real terms, vendors will provide more rich content that will be available anytime, anywhere. Let's think in terms of the informative programmes that we see on TV. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could access such programs when we want, what we want, rather than waiting? It would also be much better if we were to move to precisely the information/segment that we want.

The keywords here are interactivity and immediacy of content vs static content that is available at pre-determined times.

On a number of Websites, including www.tribuneindia.com, you can see video content. This is another use, and the next stage would be to have streaming video that would allow live broadcasts.

However, this is just one aspect. The aim is to combine entertainment, information and network home shopping/e-commerce services. The last is the most problematic, since even in western countries, people have been surprisingly slow in taking to shopping over the Net. However, the usage is increasing.

Thought the recent telecom reforms have brought increasing amount of bandwidth at an affordable level we are not quite geared for convergence-much more needs to be done. Content has to be created and adapted for multimedia applications that would enrich the convergence material.

In this many Indian companies are gearing up to provide training to creative individuals. They would make such multimedia presentations combining, text, video and sound, and a healthy dose of interactivity, as would make full use of the convergence.

A major advantage that India has in convergence is the newness of telecommunications infrastructure and the adaptability of people. Computer usage has increased exponentially in the past few years and bandwidth is greater and cheaper. This helps the users and planners envision a richer fare for those who are connected on the information superhighway.

Convergence in India

T. Maheedharan, National Academics Head, Arena Multimedia, answered the following questions regarding convergence in India.

How do you see convergence in the Indian context?
Infrastructural requirements have to be in place before convergence takes off. But the current activities related to broadband are showing potential and convergence should flag off very soon in a big way.

What initiatives has Arena taken towards convergence?
Arena Multimedia has a three-year programme called the "Multimedia Specialist Programme," the sixth semester of which covers media convergence. The students acquire skills on the aspects of circuit switching/ packet switching, ATM, Voice over IP, socket server technologies and media convergence principles.

What would be a realistic timeline for convergence in India?
There would be no one-phase implementation of convergence. This has to happen in multiple phases as infrastructure improves. Realistically speaking media intensive services would take one or two years to start peaking in India, while less intensive services would be seen a little earlier.

Home
Top