Seamless connections

Aspen Summit to mull joys, trials of tech convergence

Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, August 21, 2006

During the dot-com boom, technology executives boasted about the snazzy products and services arising from the convergence of telecommunications, TV and the Internet industries.

Metro Denver Network built a $250,000 marketing campaign around "Convergence Corridor: Technology with Altitude."

Then came the dot-com bust.

Today, convergence is back with a flurry, bringing consumers closer to enjoying personalized entertainment services, and access to the Internet and their voice and e-mail messages, with a push of a button at any time, anywhere.

But with these advances have come ominous threats to privacy, security and wholesomeness. And many technology challenges remain, such as making devices simple and affordable enough for any non-geek to use.

"Convergence has been a buzzword around technology circles for nearly a decade, but it now seems a reality as content, voice, video and data all migrate to Internet protocol-based platforms," says Ray Gifford, the outgoing president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank that studies the digital revolution.

But technology enabling seamless connections, Gifford adds, also increases the potential for darker elements to emerge.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation will be discussing such conundrums today and Tuesday at its annual Aspen Summit. The summit, titled "Global Competition, Convergence and Culture," brings together some of the best thinkers in communications, entertainment, Internet and the government.

Many experts recently declared that the reality of convergence finally has replaced the hype, with the consulting firm Deloitte projecting in a report last November that the industry could become multitrillion-dollar in scope.

Convergence didn't deliver the first time around, Deloitte said, because companies expected instant payback and failed to consider and understand what consumers actually wanted and needed.

This time, products and services are emerging that customers actually want, ranging from online music to Internet-based appliances such as digital music players - "and most are already generating real revenue and earnings," Deloitte said.

Other potential hits: voice over Internet protocol, interactive television, home video phones, cellular phone content such as video streaming and interactive games.

Many of today's devices and applications depend on the fusion of different platforms for their success.

The Apple iPod music player, for example, wouldn't be so huge if it wasn't linked to the iTunes music download service, Deloitte noted.

Research in Motion created a powerful new market in mobile e-mail services with its BlackBerry appliance.

Local examples of convergence abound and are increasing steadily.

Several wireless companies offer video content on their phones and high-speed Internet access along the Front Range.

Comcast began offering video on demand in the Denver area two years ago and has steadily increased the number of archived TV shows and movies that digital TV subscribers can watch at any time.

"The content potentially could be viewed on a mobile device in the future," said Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons.

EchoStar has increased its pay-per-view options and interactive games, and last year offered remote control shopping with Sharper Image. It also added an interactive horse-racing channel to its lineup.

Qwest Communications and Comcast both offer voice- over-Internet services that allow subscribers to access voice messages online.

In June, Qwest announced it would be the first U.S. telecommunications company to offer Microsoft's Windows Live Web service, which includes a new suite of security services and allows a customer to increasingly customize an Internet home page.

John Malone's Liberty Media and EchoStar have been investing in the Slingbox, a device that enables a viewer to watch TV, such as their hometown sports team, at a computer in another city where the game isn't broadcast.

Convergence is being driven by a number of factors, according to Deloitte and others. Digital data has become the common way to handle words, music, pictures and video. Advances in technology continue, such as battery life and processing speeds. High-speed connections are increasing.

The research group The Yankee Group noted earlier this year that the Internet "is becoming embedded in the daily fabric of individuals' lives," with more than two-thirds of American households now having access. Of those, more than half have high-speed, or broadband, connections.

While the Internet may be more popular with younger people, more than half of Americans over the age of 65 have access at home.

Communications patterns are shifting, with cellular phones increasingly replacing land lines, and wireless Internet access points becoming more prevalent across the United States - in hotels, city parks and commuter trains. A communitywide wireless network is being built in Vail.

The Yankee Group says the "holy grail" of the convergence effort is the ability for consumers to personalize their services regardless of location or device.

Dan Yost, Qwest executive vice president of product and marketing, says the U.S. is "on the doorstep" of an age in which messages, music, video and data can be sent to multiple devices simultaneously, with the consumer in control of what gets sent where and in what order.

But technology overload is a concern as consumers struggle to master new applications.

"It has to be put into a platform that's intuitive and easy to use," Yost said. In other words, companies can't expect consumers to flail through a number of electronic menus.

Frank Perazzini, director of J.D. Power & Associates' telecommunications group, sees consumers rapidly adopting new technologies such as digital video recorders, which enable them to record live TV. But he also sees them struggle with increasingly complicated set-top boxes, remote controls and other devices.

"The confluence of different types of technologies is causing some angst from consumers," Perazzini said.

Then there's the dark side of convergence, as any parent knows who tries to protect his children from objectionable content on TV and the Internet. Companies such as Comcast and EchoStar have moved quickly on installing parental controls.

Concerns linger. Myspace.com, for example, has spawned a whole new era of social networking over the Internet but also increases worries about predators.

"The cultural foment caused by the Internet revolution is enormous, and the effects are both good and bad," says Gifford of the Progress & Freedom Foundation. "On the good side, the digital revolution promises easier and seamless connections between people socially, creatively and politically. However, the same connectivity makes the darker aspects of human nature also easier to indulge and propagate."

Aspen Summit

• Topic: Global Competition, Convergence & Culture

• Host: The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank

• Corporate sponsors: About 40, including AT&T, Comcast, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Qwest and Walt Disney Co.

• Main speakers: Anne Sweeney, president Disney-ABC Television Group; Deborah Platt Majoras, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission; Qwest CEO Dick Notebaert; Viacom Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone

• Dates: Today and Tuesday

• Cost: $2,800 corporate; $500 for government/charity/academic

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155