Unit 5. Convergence in Telecoms and IT. New Trends

Start-up

5.1 Work with a partner. Make a list of all the things some of the latest mobile devices can replace. What can your personal mobile phone do, besides sending SMS?

Text A. Responding to Convergence

By: Mike Rock

Convergence is creating new businesses and forcing existing businesses to adapt quickly or die. We are seeing the convergence of telecommunications, IT & Media; the convergence of fixed & mobile services and convergence at device level. All of these trends are creating new markets and making other equipment, products, services and even whole companies rapidly obsolete. For technology manufacturers or service providers, deciding which markets to base your future on becomes a challenge with serious consequences. Should ВТ or AT& T provide home TV services to replace their declining telephony revenues? Should Kodak integrate a mobile phone into its cameras or just give up?

Does Microsoft still need to sell boxed software when you can download applications onto a smart phone? Does everyone have to have a mobile offering or have no future? When the communication of voice is just another software application what do equipment manufacturers like Nortel or Alcatel-Lucent do? Google just does search, right? Collisions within the telecoms, IT and media sectors are occurring now on a daily basis. Like any busy crossroads, there are going to be near misses and head on crashes. As ever, the survivors will be the companies that understand their customers, and are agile enough to quickly respond to all this change.

Vocabulary notes:

BT - BT Group (ранее British Telecommunications plc или British Telecom) — британская телекоммуникационная компания.

AT& TInc. (stylized as at& t) is an American multinational telecommunications corporation, the second largest provider of mobile telephony and the largest provider of fixed telephony in the United States

Convergence - Telecommunications convergence, network convergence or simply convergence are broad terms used to describe emerging telecommunications technologies, and network architecture used to migrate multiple communications services into a single network.^[1] Specifically this involves the converging of previously distinct media such as telephony and data communications into common interfaces on single devices.

Obsolete - No longer produced or used; out of date: the disposal of old and obsolete machinery.

Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, was a multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, bankrupt now.

Alcatel-Lucent is a French global telecommunications equipment company. The company focuses on fixed, mobile, and converged networking hardware, IP technologies, software, and services. Has been operating in Kazakhstan since 1991.

5.2 Based on the text, suggest English equivalents for the following words and expressions:

оборудование, службы и даже компании быстро становятся устаревшими; предоставлять услуги домашнего телевидения; уменьшение доходов; упакованный программный продукт; оживленный перекресток.

5.3 Write a comment in response to this blog post.

Tech tutorial:

3G G.4G = New generations of mobile phone standards, allowing mobile network operators to offer advanced services.

Ethernet = A very high bandwidth data networking technology used by companies in LANs and increasingly WANs.

GSM = Global System for mobile communications. A worldwide standard for mobile phones making phones from one operator compatible with a different operator in another country.

MPLS= Multi-Protocol Label Switching. A data networking protocol and service that can carry different kinds of traffic-voice, data, video etc.

Open source = Software that is made available to developers and users, licensed to encourage re-use without charge.

SaaS = Software as a Service.

Wi-Fi =A technology providing wireless transmission of data over a short range (for example, in a house or office)

Wi- Max = A technology providing wireless transmission of high speed data over a large area (for example, a city).

5.4 Read the magazine article about trends in Telecoms and IT. Match the industry Leader to their area of expertise.

1) Peter Wilson a) software

2) Jenny Lane b) telecoms

3) Sanjay Ravi c) hardware

Text A. State of play

To celebrate our 10^thanniversary, we invited industry leaders to share their thoughts about the changing world of Telecoms and IT. To find out what they think, read on...

Peter Wilson

The world is now plugged in, and countries are connected up using a mixture of terrestrial networks, undersea cables, satellite and microwave communications, Wi-Max and Wi-Fi, GSM and 3G. The move from packet-based services to the internet protocol means everyone expects to communicate voice, data and video from anywhere to anywhere, globally. The availability of wide area data services such as MPLS and Ethernet have spread all over the world, allowing companies to manage and communicate with their operations wherever they may be.

A reason for this has been the fall in bandwidth costs, and broadband is getting cheaper and cheaper. Services can now deliver tens or even hundreds of megabits of bandwidth into individual homes for much less money than a 64Kb line that a whole factory might have used to run its operation only a few years ago.

Jenny Lane

In 1965 Gordon Moore stated that the number of transistors on a chip would double about every two years. And that has more or less remained true since then. As we write, a single chip can hold about 1 billion transistors each making 3 billion binary calculations per second.

There has' been a huge increase in the volume of data and data storage capacity required for this; secondly, there has been a significant decrease in the size and power consumption of hardware and finally manufacturing costs are falling significantly. The result is that there are more and more powerful computers in our lives, and even handheld devices can store gigabytes of data holding thousands of MP3 music, files or hundreds of films.

Sanjay Ravi

The internet is changing the way we access, buy and use applications. We go online and download the software we want onto our computer, like any other digital product. Increasingly we don't even have the software on our hardware, but visit an internet site and use that application as a service. The use of this Software as a Service (SaaS) model means that we may not need such powerful computers in the future.

We have seen the impact of off- shoring and the rise of India as the world centre of software development and application management. We are also seeing some of the smartest applications and services coming out of people's bedrooms; more and more experts are producing Open source software, which is becoming more and more popular, creating a real threat to the big corporations.

5.5 Read the text again. Say if the following statements are TRUE (T) or FALSE (F) according to the text.

According to Peter Wilson:

1) most countries are connected up with undersea cables. T F

2) many countries have unreliable mobile phone networks. T F

3) recently bandwidth costs have risen dramatically. T F

According to Jenny Lane:

4) Moore's predictions have been fairly accurate. T F

5) a typical chip can now hold 3 billion transistors.T F

6) both data storage capacity and power consumption have gone up.T F

According to Sanjay Ravi:

7) fewer people are going to computer stores to buy software. T F

8) SaaS will require ordinary users to have more powerful computers. T F

9) software development needs the support of a big corporation to succeed. T F

5.6 Match the words on the left with the words on the right to make pairs of words that often go together. The word on the left must go with all three words in the set. See the example.

1 access a chip, wafer, valley

2 download —— b an application, a network, an account

3 go с online, offline, on holiday

4 mobile d phone, telephony, broadband

5 silicon e a file, an image, a demo version

5.7 Complete the sentences using pairs of words from exercise. Make any changes that are necessary.

_ 1 Everyone has_______, so payphones are becoming redundant.

2 Many internet entrepreneurs from______________ in California are now turning their attention to alternative forms of energy.

3 Before you buy the program, you can__________just to see how you like it.

4 With a mobile broadband connection, you can _____any time and

anywhere.

5 Internet banking allows users to and check their balances.

6 How many transistors can you fit onto a___________?

Talking about change

We can use the present continuous to talk about change.

Manufacturing costsare falling significantly

More and more expertsare producing Open source software.

We often use one or more comparative adjectives to talk about change.

Broadband is getting cheaper and cheaper.

Open source software is becomingmore and more popular.

5.8 Complete sentences with the words in brackets, making any changes that

are necessary.

1 Digital radio sets are becoming (become) less and less popular.

2 More and more people_________ (listen) to radio over the Internet.

3______________ Laptops are getting_________ (cheap).

4 Handheld devices are becoming _______________(sophisticated).

5 Battery life______________(get)___________(long).

6 In some areas, VoIP___________ (take over) from PSTN.

7 Mobile broadband speeds____________(increase) dramatically.

Convergence in business

5.9 New words are continually being created in Telecoms and IT. Often these words are made up of two parts. Match the openings in Column A with the correct endings in Column B. See the example.

A B

UP -space, -crime

DOWN -load, -grade, date (upload, upgrade, update)

E -time, -load

TELE -book, -mail, -commerce

CYBER -working, -conferencing, -coms

5.10 Now match the openings in Column A with the endings in Column B

A B

hard-, ad-, spy-BAND

wave-, broad-, narrow- BYTE

broad-, pod-, news- CAST

smart-, cell-, i-, head- WARE

kilo-, mega-, giga- PHONE

Can you think of any other words with these openings and endings?

5.11 Complete the sentences using a suitable word from exercises 11, 12

1. _____________is increasing, so more and more people have an office at home and aren't commuting to an office.

2. The police are recruiting IT experts to deal with the alarming increase

in_______________.

3. Each memory module contains a ________________of RAM, or 1024

megabytes, to be precise.

4. Our servers are very reliable, so we have hardly any_____________.

5. This anti-virus program scans your PC for ___________that threatens

your security.

6. Did you buy a full version of the OS or just an________________?

5.12 Read the article about networking developing countries and answer the questions below.

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