The future of communications

Today the telecommunications community is going through a tremendous revolution that will shape the next century. The network will be everywhere and computing will shift from professional desktop computing towards consumer oriented networked computing using compact wireless personal multi-media devices that can communicate with each other as well as with machines such as house hold appliances. Radically new man-machine interfaces will appear and sooner then you think you will be talking to your VCR over your mobile handset in order to program it. Deregulation and convergence are today's magic words. Because of the monopolies, market share used be to guaranteed. Deregulation made competition reenter the game. Today it are consumers that drive the telecommunications market and no longer the governments. In stead of 5-year plans we now have to plan the annual christmas sales and be sure that our prices are competitive. Nowadays, we have to buy market share through time-to-market, price and of course... good products. Network convergence is key to make it all happen. Fixed/mobile and voice/data/video convergence will be essential for the development of the networked society.