| Sumario: | The impact of the Internet Protocol (IP) on telephony is anticipated to replace traditional voice services with integrated voice and IP-based applications. The traditional telephony networks, though technically and economically unsuited to supporting the integrated applications including messaging and e-commerce, will nonetheless be leveraged by the ability to be interconnected and interoperate with IP networks. The potential for leveraging IP-based applications together with the traditional telephony infrastructure will likely create new markets for traditional telephony carriers, opening the opportunity for new alliances and partnerships with content providers, broadcast networks and integrated network service providers to enterprises. These new alliances will generate both opportunities for economic growth of a re-shaped telecommunications industry as well as challenges to the traditional approaches to its governance and regulation. Specifically, there will be an increased need to harmonize the progression of international technical standards for IP and the traditional telephony spheres as well as assessment of the implications of regulation presently applied to telephony as voice and video services become increasingly integrated within new IP-based applications delivered across a broad based communications infrastructure.
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