Convergence is the rage, but it`s a ways from reality

By Mike Langberg

Mercury News

LAS VEGAS - The buzzword on everyone`s lips at this year`s Consumer Electronics Show is ``convergence,`` but that`s just a big word for a simple idea: getting all your electronic entertainment and information at home from one single connection.

And the digital technology that allows this, much of it coming from Silicon Valley, is unquestionably transforming every kind of home electronic device.

Industry heavyweights gathered here for the four-day show, ending Sunday, are expounding endlessly about the convergence of television, music, movies, radio, wired phone service, wireless phone service, e-mail, Web browsing and photography -- all through one hub. The hub could be a computer or a TV sitting in the living room at home, or a device that travels with you as a portable music player, phone-camera or personal digital assistant.

It`s a nifty idea, but many of these products won`t be popular nearly as soon as some companies hope.

So many of them -- TVs, music players, cameras and phones -- already are or soon will be digital products -- containing content that`s nothing more than streams of digits, ones and zeros, transmitted through wires or airwaves.

If they can`t go digital, industry empires will crumble. And new empires will be born. Of course, none of today`s titans are volunteering for extinction. So these big companies must present convergence products at CES, no matter how tentative or poorly conceived.

``Convergence has become like the weather,`` grumbled Edward E. Whitacre, chairman of phone company SBC, in a CES keynote speech Thursday. ``Everybody talks about it and nobody does much about it.``

Microsoft, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Thomson/RCA, Toshiba, TiVo, DirecTV and Dish Network are among the talkers.

But many of the products these companies announced don`t have model numbers, prices or ship dates -- sure signs, I`ve learned in 14 years of attending CES, that their creators aren`t quite sure if they can turn their prototypes into consumer-worthy hardware.

There`s even an outbreak of vision inflation. Philips` announced ``The Connected Home`` as a mantra two years ago. This year, Philips said its mission is delivering products for ``The Connected Planet.`` At CES in 2007, I therefore predict, Philips will be prepared to serve ``The Connected Solar System.``

I don`t want to come across as a cynic.

What`s great about CES is all the energy from so many companies presenting new ideas. Many, if not most, will fail, but a few will be spectacular successes.

Digital convergence, too, is more than a myth. As with many big technology transformations, however, it`s easier to see the end of the road than how we`ll get there.

By the end of this decade, most homes in the United States will have a single very fast Internet connection into the home replacing today`s copper phone wires and coaxial cable TV lines. That single connection will provide everything we want from outside the home -- television, the Internet, music, movies, radio and phone calls.

We will access all of this through home networks, both wireless and using existing electrical lines. Any device we buy -- television sets, computers, phones, cameras, radios, alarm clocks -- will automatically connect to this network.

So it won`t be unusual in 2010 to snap a picture on vacation and have a print waiting in the output tray of your home printer. Or to use your phone to program your digital video recorder to grab the latest reality series, ``Survivor: Milpitas.``

Painting this vision is the easy part. What`s hard is resolving the many unanswered questions.

Who will own this single line into the home? Will that line be regulated, and will independent content providers have a fair shot at reaching you? What standards will be required so every device in the home can communicate over a single network? Will that network use open standards freely available to all manufacturers, or will there be licensing requirements and other restrictions?

I don`t know, and I strongly suspect no one else at CES does either. I also have a hunch that none of the convergence-related announcements at this year`s show will seem relevant in two or three years.

The one exception could be SBC, the local phone company for most of the western United States. San Antonio-based SBC is spending a staggering $4 billion to roll out a fiber-optic network to 18 million homes -- including most of the Bay Area -- by the end of 2007. The network will run at 20 to 25 megabits per second, nearly 10 times faster than today`s speediest home Internet connections, and more than enough to deliver bandwidth-intensive services such as high-definition television.

During his CES speech Thursday, Whitacre unveiled the brand name ``U-verse`` for the package of services his company will provide through the new network, including TV, phone, e-mail and the Web.

``SBC is not ahead of our headlights,`` Whitacre said in his Texas drawl.

So, 20 years after the original AT&T was broken apart to free us from the apron strings of Ma Bell, the phone company just might end up clutching us more tightly than ever.