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iThe article reports that over the last few years, service providers have been increasingly looking at converging their existing networks and the associated services onto a common packet-based infrastructure. There are several forces driving this convergence strategy, such as fundamental changes in the evolution of technology and service delivery; for example, the use of IP differentiated services architecture to support multiple classes of data such as voice, video, and data in order to facilitate the deployment of multiple services over an IP/MPLS infrastructure. An important motivation for such a convergence strategy is reducing operating expenses and maximizing the efficiency of capital expenditures. For example, in the past it was commonplace for a service provider to have multiple completely separate networks; one for asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) services, one for frame relay services, and one for Internet access services. This, in most cases, required that the provider purchase three separate sets of network devices, operate and maintain three different operations systems for managing these networks, and also bear the separate support and sales costs for each. Next-generation networks (NGNs) aim to consolidate all of these into a single more cost-effective and manageable system. With MPLS technology emerging as a basis for NGNs, service providers either have implemented or are implementing MPLS networks to facilitate this convergence over a packet-based core. The inventors of MPLS were originally driven by the growing need to make the IP infrastructure switch at the speeds being achieved by popular layer 2 switches such as ATM, while still maintaining the flexibility and deployment success of IP.

Presents an introduction to the June 2005 issue of the journal "IEEE Communications Magazine."