Video Callers Unite!

I have been socializing with many friends on the topic of where we stand with video these days.

First of all, I think the Internet has proven itself to be capable of delivering quality video on demand. My wife watches Netflix on TV. The kids do Hulu: Everyone’s content.

I also have participated in Telepresence and Skype Video calls that have been extraordinarily crisp and clear.

So it was no wonder that Apple gave the all clear that video was allowed and bought the name Facetime.

Now I have my kids asking about Facetime, the community asking Apple about SIP and me wondering who is going to bridge the gaps.

I think we need to unite on the common thread of delivering video calls between carriers and to conferencing systems.

This is harder than it sounds for two reasons.

1. You never know what’s ahead of you. While VoIP has solved much of its NAT / Firewall issues, or at least become tolerated enough to not have to seek port 80, the video world still has not become accepted as desired traffic. A heavy payload ofUDP aimed at corporate firewall looks like barbarians at the gate and very few companies are looking to change that.

2. The pricing models do not make any sense currently. If you make a stream voice or video over the net it’s free, if you make a call it costs. That is legacy but logical. Now you try to figure out what to charge for video calls and some folks see them as more value that voice, others see them as free, and too many of them see a video conference bridge as a cash cow that has never given them enough milk.

3. What we need is some common sense about what to do when a person to person video call goes across to carriers and what to do when a number of users want to be connected to a video bridge.

These worlds are not exactly on the same page but they should be. The drivers for the marketplace are heating up as H.264 keeps expanding in use and scope these scenarios have to be navigated. I would like to see this done and would be willing to hold a conference call about it.

If you would like to participate please contact me. Carl@4GWE.com

Free Webinar

The announcements of One Voice late last year, has been renamed and Voice over LTE [VoLTE]. The GSMA with the help of other organizations are facilitating the advancement of the standard implementation.

VoLTE has rapidly become the primary strategy for most mobile operators for deliverying packetized voice. I recommend you come to the free webinar to see and hear how mobile operators are meeting the challenge of embracing the IP packet core and maintaining their voice traffic. Join me on March 18th at 11 EDT.

Andy Abramson had an interesting concept in his blog this week about Intel and Nokia working more closely together.  The basis of the concept starts with the battle in silicon right now.  Its and interesting question to contemplate for a number of reasons.

1)  The WiMAX, ATOM revolution has not produced the momentum that Intel would like.  Google, Comcast, Sprint and all the other elves involved with Clear are not enough to get the billions of cellphone devices looking to include Intel in the their space.  So forging a relationship with Nokia where they could have a stronger presence in the 3G world makes sense.

2) If the goal was not to be a device company but to turn Nokia into a platform strategy, that would have a lot of value to Nokia, which has been coping with a market that is heading towards less customizaton. Nokia has been stuck delivering lots of phones with nuances to carriers, why not make this more like the PC market.  You could even bring the PC manufacturers into the mix and have them be the private label.

3) It allows Nokia to get reset on so much of its legacy Symbian flavoring.  Bringing the Nokia Developer community to the web where it can stop the internal battling and take advantage of the tools coming of age as we head toward HTML 5.0.  The IPhone has everyone scrambling and it maybe that the goal should be to keep the apps as close to web development as possible.

While it is fun to speculate, I am not sure this is the move, that Intel wants to do next.  I can see more advangates to Nokia, but it maybe that I just see the flaws in Nokia’a armor right now.  Intel can afford to have several missteps in this market and unless their PC manufacturing customers are ready to attack the ARMy of cellullar players it maybe that all these things can be done with Nokia without the merger.

But if does happen, remember Andy said it first.

In case you can not tell. I am Psyched about Skype and Verizon Wireless announcement.

It has real meat on the bone to talk about. I came into the call expecting it to be something akin to termination strategies our support for over the top VoIP. What we got instead was something more intriguing. Peering relationship that is a direct benefit to the consumer.

Jim Courtney of Voice on the Web points out that on ATT we are going to have VoIP skype apps and on Verizon Wireless we are going to have a 3G app. It makes for an interesting comparison. We know in theory the Skype on Verizon Wireless on a Blackberry should be a better application.

We have scheduled a calliflower call for 11 tomorrow to discuss in more detail For now this is a great warm up podcast.

 

 Conversations with Jim Courtney about Skype and Verizon Wireless [16:31m]: Play Now | | Download

My rendering of the South Pacific song

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer is going write for you

Look at Apple’s Shares
look at all those subs
Don’t you wish you were one of them too.

Look at all those bucks
riding on phone
Geez, I never realized how much my phone sucks

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer will write for you

Hey I got a plan
I will write an app
Then I’ll watch all the bucks roll in

When you call the phone
It will it will ignore the call
I bought this to escape the human race

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer will write for you

Bob Logan and I have been talking about doing an interview about Dialogic’s video work for a while now. As Bob says on the podcast “Video is the new Voice”. So we did an interview together in several forms. Hope you enjoy listening reading and watching.

CF: What is new in Dialogic these days?

RL: One thing that is not new is that Dialogic provides enabling technologies… platforms… etc etc. For a long time, we have specialized in media processing and signaling… especially in the voice world. To answer your question, we think that Video is the New Voice. Applications that have been voice or audio-enabled will be video. More specifically, within the video space, we see lots of opportunities for mobile video… fits with our talents. Etc

Our focus is on mobile video, and our specialty is highest quality with the highest performance.

CF: What types of applications do you see happening today in mobile video?

RL: You know what, Carl? Some of the most popular applications today are actually capitalizing on the fact that not all networks today handle video services. There are some cool applications around call completion – probably a pretty boring topic on its own, but one that has always been a big revenue winner for the carriers.

Lots of applications around entertainment and social media. There is an application in Asia called “love meter” – basically the app has some software that tries to measure the caller’s mood to determine if he or she is compatible with the person on the other end.

There are always applications that kind of catch me by surprise. In Japan, a very popular application is a remote surveillance application that lets you check remotely on the status of your pet.

And finally, we need to acknowledge that adult content has always been on the leading edge of communications technologies and mobile video is no exception.

There are lots of examples (none from the adult industry) on Dialogic’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/dialogiccorp.

CF: What are some new applications that you see with increased bandwidth – 4G and beyond?

RL: A lot of the high bandwidth mobile applications will be similar to those we have on our computers today – video streaming, music streaming, interactive video telephony.

People are becoming more comfortable with mobile video. The people at Nielsen publish a nice report each quarter – the most recent data are from 3Q10 and it shows 15M people watching video on their mobile phone – up >50% since last year. And naturally, teenagers are the heaviest users. It’s becoming more mainstream and higher bandwidths will just accelerate the trend.

I think that high bandwidth networks make it much easier to monetize mobile video – advertising becomes easier. Combining this with increased information about the user (likes/dislikes), geographic information available in the device, information on the content being viewed… the advertising can get very targeted.

One thing to keep in mind, Carl… the high bandwidth networks will help, but new devices will also help. Look at how the iPhone has revolutionized mobile video.

CF: You’ve given some applications and examples from the consumer market – what about enterprises?

RL: We’re seeing a lot of enterprises adding video to their IVR systems, turning them into IVVR.

Applications like remote filing of insurance claims, enterprises offering video training to consumers (think about video help on how to assemble your kid’s toys on Christmas Eve)

These examples are streaming, but I think the real breakthrough to the enterprise will be from enhanced analysis of the video stream itself.

Detecting whether a video is authentic, whether it has been tampered with, determining if it contains objectionable material, ensuring high quality. These are things that matter a great deal to an enterprise, and these are the areas where Dialogic is spending its research and development investment.

CF: You mentioned video quality. Do you think that really matters in a mobile world?

RL: Yes, Carl, I really do.

For one thing, we need to realize that the mobile operators are looking at the increased levels of traffic that video is bringing onto their networks, and they are getting concerned. There have been discussions about throttling traffic or at least making people aware of how much traffic they are consuming. Carriers are approaching this with a mindset of restriction or punishing consumers. I want to make a prediction – I think that some carrier is going to realize that there is a revenue opportunity here – that they will offer a higher quality of user experience and be able to use that as a way of generating additional revenue for network investment. I think someone will turn this into a carrot instead of a stick.

Do you remember that Nielsen report that I referenced earlier? Well Nielsen has also reported that people who watch video on their laptops typically watch “short form” video – YouTube clips and the like.

But people who watch mobile video are typically watching professionally-produced content. Some of this is because the carriers provide this content as part of their service offering. But I think viewers have a higher expectation of quality when they watch professionally-produced content.

Combine that with larger screen sizes, better display technologies, and networks with higher bandwidth and we believe that quality will be increasingly important for consumers.

Yeah, quality matters.

 

 Bob Logan of Dialogic [16:14m]: Play Now | | Download

Am I burping when a friend sends me an article and I reply with a single observation.

I got a note about the NYC Big Apps competition. It was aimed at providing e-government solutions.

Apps are all the rage right now and it is going to continue. The big questions are not are people making apps, it how are they finding them. Is a contest the only way to highlight an application. If almost all the apps are free? Doesn’t free start to lose its viral nature?

As you know, I don’t think the technology of LTE vs. WiMAX is half as
important as the issues of applications. I had the benefit of meeting
with the Axxcelera folks and we got on the subject of government
applications. Video Surveillance specifically, and I was not allowed
to say more.

Which of course prompted me to do this video.

What I enjoyed about the full duplex nature of the system is that it
enables some very interactive camera movement and who knows what else
big brother would want to do. Ignoring the paranoia, the overall
effect of having such a system is pretty compelling to me.

Here are some of the other characteristics. While it is WiMAX it’s
designed more for some private solutions operating between 3.3-3.8 GHz
spectrum and supports a Full Duplex FDD (Frequency Division Duplex)
architecture. It does not need line of sight and supports error
checking and other quality management characteristics.

It could also be used for voice (VoIP) services given its full duplex nature.

Mark’s history mirrors the wireless industry closely and includes being the CTO of Leap and leading developments at Nextwave and Qualcomm. Today, he is doing some consulting and thinking about new opportunities in the market.
With all this history the discussion takes us to in-depth analysis. He blogs about various aspects of the industry and his life at http://spassmeister.com/ .

On this call, we discussed.
The History of GSM and CDMA and why we are at where we are.
The role of WiMAX in the market.
How it relates to wireless backhaul.
The issues of spectrum.
The smartphones impact on the carriers.
Demand and Costs are converging on the carriers roll out of wireless backhaul.
What business models are making sense right now?
What the opportunity for White Space in the market?

You can find Mark’s website at http://markkelleyonline.com/index.html

 

 Mark Kelley Online [33:34m]: Play Now | | Download

President Obama, went to China and gave a speech on Internet Freedom.

The President was asked if Chinese people should be allowed to use Twitter. It was an interesting that the Blackberry man admitted he does not tweet. In China, Skype is a partnership with TOM, a company that complies with government requirements.

The interesting issue about the Internet is that it was designed to be a transnational standard without being part of the ISC or any of the traditional rules. Now we are faced with government requirements from every country on the Internet. The Great Firewall of China, has its equivalents almost everywhere these days.

So the question has to be asked is will Internet Freedoms be the same everywhere, and if not, is there a core requirement we should aspire to worldwide.

The W3C, keeps expanding the abilities of the web to the point where the backbone of the Internet has shifted. Should we expect the web to be a baseline for these freedoms?

I will send some notes around to key players and would like your feedback of relevant people to ask these questions.

Should we expect Internet Freedoms to be applied world wide?

Is the a baseline of service beyond best effort we should expect?

What issues do we face if government and carriers regulate the Internet?

What technical issues are of concern to your these days?