Traditionally, communications media were separate. Services were quite distinct - broadcasting, voice telephony and on-line computer services. They operated on different networks and used different "platforms": TV sets, telephones and computers. Each was regulated by different laws and different regulators, usually at national level. Nowadays digital technology allows a substantially higher capacity of traditional and new services to be transported over the same networks and to use integrated consumer devices for purposes such as telephony, television or personal computing.

Telecommunications, media and IT companies are using the flexibility of digital technologies to offer services outside their traditional business sectors, increasingly on an international or global scale.

Thus, convergence is a term for the combining of personal computers, telecommunication, and television into a user experience that is accessible to everyone. Studies show a large populace of TV users who would embrace the Internet, video-on-demand, and greater interaction with content, but who are diffident about buying and using a personal computer. For these reasons, both the computer and the television industries are embarked on bringing digital TV and the Internet to a larger market. Convergence is not simply an issue of technology, but also of culture and life style. In general, TV is visual, not very interactive (except for changing channels), oriented primarily toward entertainment and news. Displays are large and TVs are easy to operate, requiring almost no education to use. Personal computers, in spite of their graphical user interfaces (GUI) tend to be more text-oriented, highly interactive, oriented in terms of purpose and content toward business and education uses. Displays are smaller. Computers can be very challenging to use and usually require formal education or a certain personal learning curve.

Convergence is already underway with WebTV, which pipes the World Wide Web to a slightly-modified TV set with a set-top box from an ordinary phone line and provides a degree of interactivity. A number of interactive games designed for the TV environment can also be played over the Internet. Broadcasting companies such as NBC have partnered with computer companies such as Microsoft for TV program content.

A major barrier to more rapid convergence is the large investment required to bring cable TV to households, both by cable access providers and individual households. satellite wireless service is another approach that is only beginning to bring its subscribers access to the Internet. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technologies offer the possibility of sufficient bandwidth connections over ordinary phone wires for streaming video to TV sets.

A consortium of leading computer and telecommunication companies including Compaq, IBM, and Microsoft are working toward common standards that will help speed up convergence and hope to sponsor a standard for a relatively low-cost digital TV. They have endorsed a subset of the recommendations of the Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) that would speed up a transition to digital TV and so that personal computers could have the ability to receive digital video and data.

Convergence is not just about technology. Convergence is a debate about the impact of technology and a quantum leap towards a mature Information Society. Convergence will offer many new opportunities for humans to enrich their lives, not just the economic dimension, but the social and cultural ones as well. The global nature and interactivity of new communications media like the Internet are already opening new vistas, far beyond traditional, national media. Convergence will certainly expand the overall information market and be the catalyst for the next stage in the integration of the world economy. Even small business can market globally, thanks to the low cost of a World Wide Web site.