convergence

The OECD described the process of convergence in detail in its report "Towards a Global Information Society". According to this report, convergence is about the merging of communications technology, information technology and the media, which are united on an interactive multimedia platform.

Other interpretations concerning convergence refer to dedicated techniques and services. Differentiated approaches are implemented in Global Information Infrastructure( GII), IPMultimedia Subsystems( IMS), and Fixed Mobile Convergence( FMC).

1. In information technology, convergence is the growing together of IT techniques with communication techniques and telecommunications.
   

   Process of convergence according to the OECD model

   This means the integration of communications services such as data communications with telecommunications services such as mobile communications, the integration of transmission technologies and of media content so that text, graphics, audio and video can be transmitted via all media.
2. Network convergence is the ability to bring together communications media using different transmission technologies. For example, local area networks(LANs) can converge with metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks(WANs), fixed networks can converge with mobile networks, individual networks can converge with distribution networks, circuit switching can converge with data packet switching, voice networks can converge with data networks, corporate networks can converge with IP networks, and private networks can converge with VPNs.
3. Convergence of services refers to the convergence of information and communications technology and the many different services, such as voice, data and video, computer and computer telephony integration( CTI), Internet and television, individual and distribution communications, orbusiness processes and e-business.
4. In Internetworking, convergence is the ability of a routing procedure to return to a stable operating state as quickly as possible after a network change. This function is usually considered as a function of the routers present in the network, the topology and the reconfiguration procedure used, since the convergence time increases as the number of routers increases and is extremely high for certain protocols such as the spanning tree protocol.
5. Media convergence is when different media converge in presentation. For example, audio and video are connected in television, and interactions and animations could also converge.
6. In cathode ray tubes, we speak of convergence when the three electron beams for red, green, and blue are arranged to exclusively address their color phosphors and produce a white pixel when activated simultaneously. The same applies to tube projectors.

More advanced convergence, in which the resources of computers, storage with its infrastructure, networks and virtualizations are integrated with each other, is called hyper-convergence.