that carries information over electricity lines or optical fibbers laid along the distribution line to provide the last mile connectivity. Use of water pipelines for Internet access. Use of the “right of way” associated with long distance power transmission lines, pipelines and railways to lay optical fibber networks over large geographical regions to create the backbone for telephony, internet and multimedia Transformation of mobile phone into a web enabled device that can access Internet. Companies entering seemingly unrelated areas such as power distribution, Internet access and water distribution due to the synergies in operating, maintaining and managing these activities. Digital Convergence: Voice and Video over Internet. Backward or forward integration of the industries is also being regarded as convergence. Therefore, if an organization was primarily into gas supply, it may enter power generation and subsequently power distribution and even Internet. A major transformation is taking place in industry structures with multinational organizations like Enron, which were primarily energy companies, entering into water, Internet and power generation. There are far-reaching implications associated with these developments. For example, in India water supply in urban areas has remained in the hands of Municipal Corporations or Water Works departments who have to generally supply water at subsidized rate. Often these activities are not viable and have to be supported by the government. However, these corporations and govt. agencies can now leverage on the pipeline infrastructure that they own and that provides them access to individual households to supply Internet access and water. Services like water distribution and power distribution that have not been viable in most of the emerging markets may become viable due to the convergence phenomenon. Major developments are taki...
