As more paths become available to use between two points, the less likely it is that one or two simultaneous failures will prevent end-to-end service.

To offer such customers end-to-end service, the phone companies are stitching together a bewildering array of partnerships.

Tavant Technologies is a provider of software solutions and end-to-end services to various sectors like service operations, consumer lending, eBusiness and trading & securities.

He said agencies needed to merge the technical and creative sides to offer "end-to-end" services for clients.

LaserPacific Media Corporation, formerly owned by Eastman Kodak, is a post-production facility in Hollywood offering a variety of end-to-end services for the entertainment industry.

Through a series of acquisitions in recent years, Veritas has transformed itself from a storage software company into a company that provides end-to-end services.

"It's a web-enabled, end-to-end service for consumers wanting to send parcels to other consumers," says Ms Woodhead, 42.

IPsphere posits that an automated framework is required for federating the resources of multiple service stakeholders-such as content providers and network operators-into end-to-end services.

"Our goal is to provide end-to-end service," John Curran, the company's chief technical officer, said.

Within each product, NeuLion's cloud-based technology platform includes end-to-end services from video ingestion and transcoding, through metadata management to distribution, monetization and content analysis.