Hey folks. Many of us from the GIPS team are at the lovely San Francisco Airport Marriot this week for the Emerging Communication Conference (eComm). eComm is a great show not only because it brings together so many people from the communications industry, but also because the format allows speakers to present a variety of topics, and encourages dialog among participants. We are in a break between speakers, so I thought I would take this chance to give a brief overview from the morning.

I missed the first couple speakers because I arrived a little late due to Google Maps giving me an incorrect address for the hotel. I usually trust Google with my life, but this is the second time in 3 days that the company has messed up in a pretty major way for me (the previous being not being able to read an email after I replied to it on my phone. Shouldn’t Gmail run like butter on Android?). Anywho, the two talks I managed to see were pretty interesting. Carlos Kirjner from the FCC gave an overview of the National Broadband Plan. For me the takeaway was that, though broadband access is crucial for increased connectivity, it is meaningless without proper resource allocation and regulation which ensures competition and consumer choice. After that, JP Rangaswami from BT/ Ribbit spoke about the rise of the open network, and the need for cross platform and network openness in the face of vertical integration and control. He made two very interesting points. One is that sometimes technological followers are just as, if not more, important than followers, but obviously could not exist without the innovative companies first breaking into the market. He illustrated this point by claiming that Android couldn’t exist without iPhone, but that the open model Android espouses could prove to be more revolutionary in the long run. The second point he made was that, though people think of content as king, a lot of content is highly commoditized. For instance, the price of music indicates that people aren’t necessarily paying for content, but rather the convenience of being able to purchase and access music from anywhere.

The strange Pink Floyd/ reggae mashup that has been playing during intermission is dimming, which means we are about to start again. It’s been a fun morning. Expect another update shortly.

Early Afternoon Update

Ok, back at it.

Jonathan Rosenberg from Skype spoke about publishing and ecommerce. Though this seems like a surprising topic for them to discuss, his point was very relevant. He believed that the kind of rich interaction that real-time communication enables can drive more involvement with publishing and commerce. He displayed a slide which showed a correlation between call quality and call duration. Skype asked participants to rate the quality of their calls, and found that calls using HD voice lasted 50% longer than those using G.729. The same principle should apply throughout the Internet. If people can interact in a meaningful way, they should be more likely to stay longer on social networking sites and would be more likely to buy more content from an online publisher. 

Cullen Jennings from Cisco followed by introducing ViPR, which utilizes the PSTN, SIP and distributed hash tables to validated phone numbers in order to connect islands of similar technology. So, instead of relying on the PSTN for a phone call, users in different companies can now call each other over IP networks and get the benefits of HD voice and video.

Dawn Nafus from Intel then brought an anthropologist’s point of view to claim that the paradigm of emerging vs. emerged countries is no longer relevant, and that there are plenty of countries who are ready for new technology, but are not being targeted as consumers by technology producers.

Michael Zirngibl from Ringio announced the launch of Ringio’s rich calling service, which integrates CRM functionality with telephony. The idea is that by including social information with a call, the service will improve customer service and sales performance. I can definitely see this going a long way.

Counterpath also launched their Nomadic PBX which connects users through their mobile numbers to provide UC and FMC functionality across platforms.

Great morning, but I am hungry, so it is off to lunch.

Early Afternoon Update

With a full belly, here are some of the afternoon highlights:

Since I am a map geek, Assaf Binderman’s talk has to be my favorite so far. He showed how data can be used to make cities more efficient and deliver better service. For instance, he showed a map of Florence during rush hour, with an overlay of cell phone activity and bus routes. From the map, it became clear that there were hotbeds of pedestrian activity that were not adequately serviced by the bus system. His group at MIT has also worked on the super cool Copenhagen Wheel project, which not only provides regenerative braking power to a bike, but also collects and emits data based on a the activity of a city’s users. So users have a clean, fast mode of transportation, as well as receive maps and directions, and cities can get information about traffic patterns and pollution.

After the keynote from Ge Wang, which included many musical demos of apps from Smule, our very own Joyce Kim gave a kick ass presentation on the future of mobile video calling, and the differences between the Android and iPhone platforms. In short, H.264 SVC is going to open up a lot of possibilities, but it is still unclear how much demand there is for real time video on small devices, though tablets may change that. The iPhone has some advantages for developers (predictable hardware) but users may prefer the openness and variety that comes with Android. I think you can probably expect a more technical follow up post from one of our engineers on that topic.

Overall, it has been a very entertaining and informative day. Now off to the reception for a cocktail.

British Telecom (BT), the behemoth telecom company and one of the largest communications companies in the world want to charge video websites for carrying their content. “We can’t give the content providers a completely free ride and continue to give customers the [service] they want at the price they expect,” said John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer business in a Financial Times interview.

Petter added that content providers were “developing very profitable business models” with products that had free use of BT’s networks, but at the same time, adding significant costs to BT’s business. BT is now throttling consumers’ bandwidth during peak hours “in order to optimize the experience for all customers.”

Whether this means BT will seek payments from the like of Google and BBC is another matter but what the issue does bring up is video demands are growing exponentially online. Regardless of whether it’s streaming or real-time, new business models will likely develop, which considers the amount of data and video that we use.

In a recent report Cisco reports that IP traffic will quintuple from 2008-2013, at which point video will make up over 90 percent of Internet traffic. Here are some of the Cisco forecasts below:

Real-time video is growing in importance. By 2013, Internet TV will be over 4 percent of consumer Internet traffic, and ambient video will be 8 percent of consumer Internet traffic. Live TV has gained substantial ground in the past few years: globally, P2P TV is now slightly over 7 percent of overall P2P traffic at over 200 petabytes per month.

Video communications traffic growth is accelerating. Though still a small fraction of overall Internet traffic, video over instant messaging and video calling are experiencing high growth. Video communications traffic will increase tenfold from 2008 to 2013.

Almost 64 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2013. Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 150 percent between 2008 and 2013.

Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing 66x between 2008 and 2013. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2008 and 2013, reaching over 2 exabytes per month by 2013.