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Delivering IP-based applications to consumers on any device at any location is the vision of network providers, speakers said yesterday morning during an IEC executive forum.

Eric Shepcaro, AT&T's vice president of business strategy and development, said the transition to IP is well underway, noting that IP generates 50% of the traffic on his company's network--a figure he expects to increase significantly in the future.

"IP is like PacMan--ultimately, it will eat everything," said Shepcaro, who emphasized the importance of seamless mobility between Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

Harald Braun, president of Siemens' carrier networks division, said the three top industry trends are converging fixed and mobile traffic onto a single network, ensuring that all applications can be delivered in a mobile environment, enabling increasingly popular home-networking solutions.

"Our industry is forced to embrace this de-layering of the network," Braun said. "In this case, voice is just another IT application."

And more applications are coming. Christopher Rice, SBC Communications' executive vice president for network planning and engineering, said he forsees broadband home-networking entertainment infrastructure being used to deliver medical and security surveillance services in the future.

But the days of consumers being satisfied with "best effort" broadband are limited, said Jong-Lok Yoon, vice president of KT's new business planning group. With this in mind, KT's Octave service--incorporating WiBro, a mobile pre-WiMAX standard in Korea--will deliver guaranteed bandwidth to customers, even if they are traveling at speeds of more than 60 miles per hour, he said.

Turning this IP convergence vision into a reality will not be as easy as some indicate, said Telstra Chief Technology Officer Hugh Bradlow. Although de-layering the network is a popular concept, he predicted network providers at next year's Supercomm be focused on resolving several of the practical issues--including home-networking performance and back-office issues.

"Technology is not the real battlefield the back office is where the war will be won," Bradlow said, citing former WorldCom CEO John Sidgemore.

Rice said he believes the 802.11(n) standard will offer a promising method to distribute video to devices throughout a household. Rice agreed with Bradlow that consumers might be hesitant to buy new wireless home-networking infrastructure if they already have invested in 802.11(b) or 802.11(g), but Rice said SBC plans to incorporate 802.11(n) networking in its residential gateways.