Cellular networks have evolved since 1980. Today, cellular networks connect over half the world’s population only. Since introduction in 1995, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) networks have become very popular as they use unlicensed bands but they are not widely deployed and have low coverage. LEO satellites (e.g., Starlink, Kuiper) are being deployed to augment the existing GEO and MEO-based non-terrestrial infrastructure to provide wider coverage even and higher bandwidth. However, the end devices are not well equipped to connect to satellite networks and there are handover issues.  Hence, there is a lack of ubiquitous connectivity, interoperability, and co-existence. Converged Networks play an important role in providing secured and seamless connectivity to the end users as they move around various access networks, lose connectivity to the existing network and connect to new networks. Converged networks provide desired quality of service to the first responder community and mission critical users as they make transition from one network to another network. However, there are various challenges with deployment of converged networks, namely interference management, complex network management, seamless handover, resource allocation, extended threat landscape, quality of service management, virtualization and slicing management among others. Converged networks are different than traditional networks in terms of performance metrics, topology, mobility, backhaul, down link vs. uplink data rate. IEEE 802.21 and 3GPP ATSSS have defined standards to address some of these issues. While each of the access technologies is making progress in its vertical domain, there is a need to solve the interoperability and co-existence issues before ubiquitous connectivity becomes a reality.

This workshop will discuss some of the opportunities and challenges associated with converged networks based on the current state of deployment and will look into some of the use cases where converged networks can be most useful.