WIRELESS AND WIRELINE CONVERGENCE

Recent changes in the United States telecommunications industry-both r egulatory and market driven-provide an environment for integrating wir eless and wireline services and the infrastructure used to provide the m. Changes in the industry have created competition in local access, d eregulation that allows bundling of services and one-stop shopping, an d multiple personal communication services (PCS) licensees, each with the desire to differentiate its service offering with value-added capa bilities. Integrating wireless and wireline services enables service p roviders to offer a seamless wireless/wireline service and help contro l infrastructure and ongoing administrative costs. This paper highligh ts some advantages for integrating these systems in the U.S. market to day. We describe a vision of the long-term services architecture for a functional solution and several near-term product concepts designed t o provide an integrated wireless/wireline service.