Guest Editorial

For the last few decades, convergence has always been on the horizon of every technology solution that has been deployed to the customer. Used as we are to seeing convergence paraded as a tantalizing “almostbut- not-quite-there” set of technologies, it is refreshing to see standards being adopted for convergence of transmission, signaling and network management technologies. As India has rationalized, liberalized, unbundled, regulated and opened her telecommunication sector with successively more progressive National Telecom Policies since 1994, the viability and imminence of a commercial converged service roll-out are now in sight. As expected in a free market, the contours of this converged network will certainly vary from vendor to vendor - it adds an exciting bouquet of flavors to the services available to the end-customer since both interoperabililty standards and competition constrain each vendor to inter-operate. For the first time, we are likely to witness actual deployment of converged networks which is standard-driven and vendor-diverse.

In this Special Issue, we have been able to collate a set of articles which offer a interesting collection of viewpoints from research groups, corporations, organizations and individuals which seek to define the likely direction the implementation of convergence will take in India. We are at a important and exciting point - almost a defining point before the services roll out - in the time-line of the development of convergence technologies. The title of this Special Issue “Convergence Transformation from Vision to Reality” is appropriate - it is a particularly opportune point of time to take stock of and review developments.

It is a privilege and an honor to be the Guest Editor of this Special Issue. The support provided by IETE, especially Cdr A P Sharma, has been outstanding. His patience and trust, and that of his editorial team, when deadlines loomed large and threatened disruption of production schedules, was exemplary.

Guest Editor
Subrat Kar
Professor, Dept of Electrical Engineering
& Bharti School of Telecommunication
Technology and Management,
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016
subrat@ee.iitd.ac.in
web.iitd.ac.in/~subrat

GUEST EDITOR

Subrat Kar graduated with Honours in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani in 1987. He holds a Doctoral Degree in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1991). He has been with the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste as a Post-Doctoral Fellow (1991-1994). Presently he is a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His research areas are in optical communication, switching, access technologies, telecommunication protocols, embedded systems and high speed networks.