Convergence Revolutionizes Financial Services

The convergence-focused telecommunications industry is always looking to adapt to, and develop, for new markets. Surprisingly, one of the areas that is still adapting to IP telephony and convergence is the financial services market.

Let's focus on a specific and very demanding portion of this market: heavy-volume trading. Trading environments require robust communications networks, not only for data, but for voice as well. Previously, these environments utilized specialized switching equipment and end-user "turrets" to combine together hundreds if not thousands of trunks, private lines, ringdown circuits, etc. Why hasn't this industry moved towards convergence in the last five years? Honestly, it was still an issue of reliability, and TDM/digital architectures weren't subject to the headaches of an IP network.

Within the last few years, the IP telephony and convergence industries have slowly started to change the financial services market. Market stronghold IPC has devoted development towards IP turret and switching environments, and has successfully proven that convergence is the way of the future for this industry sector. The IPC backend switching platforms integrate with popular PBX systems from many major vendors. In fact, companies such as Mitel have gotten into the game with trading and financial services-focused appliances and terminals.

So, how did the IP communications industry convince big-name customers that "convergence" would save money and reliability headaches? By adding features to the new IP-focused devices, such as redundant network interfaces, combination TDM/IP terminals, and advanced feature sets.

In my opinion, from this point forward, the financial services industry will jump on the IP communications bandwagon, and with good reason. With major vendor support, it is proven that the migration path is now clear. I have a strong feeling that major telecom vendors will begin to roll out specialized devices and applications designed specifically for the industry, which Mitel and Cisco have already done.

Simply put, look for exciting changes in the once stagnant telecommunications world of financial services.