In 2002 (six years back) I and two of my friends thought we will write a book on Convergence - The contents are below

-It turned out to be a failed project anyway!

EMERGING CONVERGENCE OF NETWORKS

CONVERGENCE

CONVERGING NETWORKS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter 1: THE EMERGING CONVERGENCE LANDSCAPE

1.1 Past, Present and Future

1.2 Wired Networks

1.3. Wireless Networks

1.4. Telecom Networks

1.5 Converging Networks

1.6 Organization of the Book

Chapter 2: CONVERGING MEDIA or MEDIA CONVERGENCE

2.1. Data & Information Transmission

2.2. Voice & Data Transmission

2.3 Data, Voice and Video Transmission

2.4 Compression

2.5. Security

Chapter 3: CONVERGING NETWORKS

3.1. Wired and Wireless Networks transmitting data

3.2. Wired and Wireless Networks transmitting Voice

3.3. Converging wired and wireless networks transmitting converged media

3.4 Gateways

3.5 Mobile IP

Chapter 4: MANAGING CONVERGING NETWORKS

4.1 NMS

4.2 TMN

4.3 OSS/BSS

Chapter 5: KILLER APPS

Chapter 6: EMERGING CONVERGENCE LANDSCAPE

PREFACE

Technology has the potential to change the world. However, the impact is indirect. Technology provides the means for mankind to change the world, as it exists. Change it for a better tomorrow. Also, the technologists don’t seem to know what may happen to their innovations in future. Graham Bell said that his discovery, the Telephone, at most would be used to convey information about the letters from one place to another. Communications technology has been at the forefront of the major changes in the past. However, the advances made in communications technology synergistically combining with the rapidly evolving Computing field, have already revolutionized the way the world lives. This has been enabled by computer networks, which allow data to be exchanged between computing entities. Advances in Computing have also significantly improved capabilities of the traditional telecom networks for voice exchanges.

However, it’s the convergence of telecommunication networks and data networks that is going to have biggest impact. The Converging Networks of the future will provide anywhere, anytime and anyway connection to human beings with each other. This all time connectivity has the potential to radically change the way we work, the way we communicate, the way we entertain ourselves, the way we travel, the way we fight, and actually the way we live our lives. The Converging Networks of the future have the potential to change the very core of our existence.

This book is about the Converging Networks. How the data networks are meshing with voice networks to provide multi-media information to users who are attached to these networks through wired and non-wired connections to these networks. What protocols are evolving for these networks? How they are implemented? What are Convergence enablers? How the converging networks going to be managed? What are the approaches to building, organizing, testing and developing these networks? What applications are happening because of convergence? Can these networks be modeled and simulated using formal models? If yes, are these models tractable? These are some of the questions we are trying to answer here.

The book is coming out as a joint effort combining all of our experience of more than 25 man-years in software development and networking field. We have tried to combine all issues that are needed to understand the converging networks. This book is meant for students, professionals, and practitioners in the networking field. The converging networks demand a thorough understanding of diverse technologies, protocols and concepts.

We hope this effort will help in bridging the gap between the theory and understanding of the Concepts, Protocols and Applications of evolving converging networks.

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