Wireless and wireline convergence

Recent changes in the United States telecommunications industry — both regulatory and market driven — provide an environment for integrating wireless and wireline services and the infrastructure used to provide them. Changes in the industry have created competition in local access, deregulation that allows bundling of services and one-stop shopping, and multiple personal communication services (PCS) licensees, each with the desire to differentiate its service offering with value-added capabilities. Integrating wireless and wireline services enables service providers to offer a seamless wireless/wireline service and help control infrastructure and ongoing administrative costs. This paper highlights some advantages for integrating these systems in the U.S. market today. We describe a vision of the long-term services architecture for a functional solution and several near-term product concepts designed to provide an integrated wireless/wireline service.