Philipp Humm, Vodafone’s European chief, told Cable Congress that ‘true convergence’ was their priority with everything centred on the subscriber. He said until now convergence – i.e. service packages – had been driven by discounting but real convergence would require changes in content rights and regulation.

Vodafone – which has bought its way to being a major converged player in the last couple of years – has convergence as a strategic priority, says Humm who believes it will only arrive when all software and content has moved to the cloud.

He said customers will want to access everything on all devices and cloud based content will change behaviour for ever. “Once you’re on the cloud you’ll never return to device storage,” he said and warned content owners that rights must catch up with consumer demand, “…my advice to content owners is never stand in the way of what customers want – many industries have tried.”

On regulation he said market consolidation was inevitable and shouldn’t be hindered and that “the US net neutrality decision went in the wrong direction but Europe looks more promising.”

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