There was a time when you had to go to a different service provider for every service – voice, data, broadband, TV contracts, telephone fixed line, and video. It was a tedious task for a business that dealt in all these services managing various vendors. But today, with converged services, they need to only manage a single vendor for all their service needs.
What is a Converged Service?
When a single network provider takes care of all your service needs, like data, voice, and video or fixed line, TV contract, and broadband in a single bundled offering, rather than having to use a separate provider for each of these, it’s called a converged service. Since these providers also provide cloud-based solutions, it often eases bandwidth constraints allowing businesses to operate more efficiently.
Key Advantages of a Converged Service
There are certain advantages of having a converged service as opposed to separate offerings.
- Security
With one single connection for all the service needs, it’s easier to implement security measures such as firewall rules, malware scanning, and anti-virus software.
- Consistency in Performance
Converged services enable all services to deliver consistent performance as all network lags and enhancements affect all services simultaneously.
Key Challenges of a Converged Service
Just as there are advantages, there are specific challenges that businesses face with converged services.
- Security Breach Affects All Services
If you had had different solutions for each service, a security breach in one would not affect the other. But in the case of converged services, since all the services are connected to a common source, a security breach is potentially harmful to all the different areas.
- Competing Standards
Competing standards for different network services are different. Having a converged service means adhering to all those competing standards, which might put constraints on services for which those standards don’t necessarily apply.
How Converged Services Affect Multiplay Offering?
Think about Amazon. It started as a bookstore, but today it sells about absolutely everything. It has become a one-stop-shop for all your needs. Similarly, companies that started purely satellite-based have now transitioned and expanded their portfolio to provide other services too, such as Broadband, OTT, and VoIP. Businesses can choose to couple the above in packages as per their requirement.
Types of Converged Services Offered by Multiplay Companies
Below are some examples of converged services offered by multiplay companies.
Type 1:
Triple play offers services like home phone, high-speed internet, and DirectTV. This model can also offer double play bundles of any two of the above three services.
Type 2:
This type too offers triple-play and double-play packages. Triple play includes U-verse TV, digital phone, and the internet, whereas double play consists of the above two. In specific locations, you also have the option of bundling in a wireless connection.
Type 3:
Type 3 lets you present three offerings, and you can bundle as many of them as you want and get a discount on their combined bill. The three offerings are a digital telephone with unlimited local and long-distance calling, high-speed internet, and advanced TV with a specific set of channels.
In Conclusion – The Core of Converged services that support Multiplay offering
With an 88% household penetration of multiplay in the UK in 2018, with other countries not far behind, it had just been a matter of time before converged services became the default business model.
In short, if converged businesses were not to exist today, those companies would be leaving money on the table by sending their customers to other vendors for different services, which would not be very difficult for them to scale up to.
