Now the above headline could easily be a headline from one of Britain’s daily tabloids but it’s also the message I received listening to a mobile phone message recently. While it’s not hard to work out what the person said – it’s just illustrates what bad mobile phone voice quality we tolerate from Operators. So reading the latest headline from ABI Research that ‘ARPUs Continue to fall globally as mobile voice usage nears saturation.’ It seems evident that HD voice is a pretty good solution for these guys. Ex Squeeze me! Hello Haych Dee Voice.
According to ABI, Mobile end-user ARPUs dropped between 6 to 9 percent globally. While in India, the world’s second-largest market in terms of subscribers, saw ARPUs dropping more than 10 percent year-on-year in the same period, as new operators and the introduction of per-second billing put heavy downward pressure on voice revenues. In Europe the ARPU contraction was in the range of -5 to -8%, with Austria seeing a contraction of more than 9%.
I recently received an email from Dan Berninger who organizes the HD Communications summit – which GIPS has sponsored since its inception last year. Good news – having traveled to New York and Paris the event will now be held here in the Silicon Valley on May 12.
In recent months LG Electronics, Panasonic and Samsung have announced television sets that allow people to view online content such as videos and photos through an easy-to-use web interface that’s built into the TV. What this also can enable is two way video communications – though the cameras need to be separately purchased from the television.
Earlier this week GIPS held a webinar on the topic ‘Is the Television the next Two-Way Communication Tool?’ If you didn’t have a chance to listen to the webinar, you can always listen to the recorded version. We took polls from the live audience, as what better way to affirm our own research conclusions on the TV as a future two-way communication tool.
We directed 4 polls to the audience and 400 people provided the following results:
As TV audiences have fragmented and evolved their tastes, the television has become less central to the home/family experience. The evolution of the TV as an interactive device has the ability to take back ground lost as a focal point in the home – recapturing the living room perhaps. 98 percent of poll respondents view the TV as becoming an interactive consumer electronic device and perhaps competing with the PC.
The live webinar audience was a solid mix of broadcast industry professionals, so it was interesting to see their response to this question: Who will benefit most from two-way communication via the TV? There are opportunities for all slices within the broadcast industry but ultimately who will benefit is the user. While we didn’t include the end user in this poll, our assumption was that the TV watcher will ultimately benefit in the long run.
While this next poll would be better directed towards consumers – it was interesting nonetheless to gauge the industry professionals’ opinion.
Finally, we asked the broadcast audience when they see the rollout of interactive programming and TVs. Well it’s already happening and as we discussed in the webinar. Oprah, CNN and Sports reporting are just a few of the places this is already happening. The times are a changing for the broadcast industry and as Charles Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
While there are hundreds of reviews of Mobile World Congress in the news and media, I thought it might be interesting to get an exhibitor’s point of view of the event especially as the media tend to get stuck in the headlights of oncoming shiny new mobile devices from the big players in the industry and not the ecosystem that the event represents.
In general the show appeared to have more visitors (50,000) in attendance than in 2009 and as one senior executive that I talked with over lunch said “I’ve got 20 years in the mobile industry and I’m still astounded and confounded at all the companies at this event – many of which I still don’t know what they do.”
GIPS made an announcement the week prior about availability of GIPS VideoEngine on the iPhone platform, which generated a good amount of press coverage but also added to the increased amount of people visiting GIPS at the show. The visitors (at least to GIPS stand) also appeared to be more senior in attendance and I saw a lot more lists in people’s hand of “companies to visit,” perhaps a sign that were people were doing their homework this year.
Whereas many industry events offer free tickets, Mobile World Congress charge nearly 600 Euro per ticket and they closely guard who comes in and out of the show – even with a pass each person must show their ID too. In 2009 the mood was downbeat and 2010 it was the complete opposite. Hopefully the optimistic tone is a true reflection of where the industry is heading now and a sign of things to come.
The show for me illustrated that the sum is greater than the parts, so while the likes of Google, HTC, Samsung, Huawei and the BBC (did I mention the Beeb stopped by our stand ; ) grabbed major headlines – this only illustrated the icing layer on the cake and not all the ingredients that go into making this event a good reflection of the mobile telecommunications ecosystem.
After AT&T’s announcement last fall that they would allow VoIP applications to use the 3G network very little has happened. No applications offering such services have actually been approved by Apple to be sold in the Apps Store. Until now, that is. Today our customer Toktumi announced that their latest upgrade of the Line2 application for iPhone has been approved by Apple. This application is touted by Toktumi as “the first iPhone calling app that works over 3G, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks using the same number”. This is pretty big news. The end user can get better call quality (HD Voice), improved coverage (through WiFi), and save a lot on call charges. VoIP applications have previously only been available on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and most recently Android devices, while maybe the most popular smartphone has lacked such support.
The Line2 application offers much more than just a standard VoIP application (As opposed to e.g. iCall, which is another VoIP application fro the iPhone). In fact, I use it on my Blackberry even though there is no VoIP support on that platform. This is because RIM hasn’t opened up the development environment in such a way that it is possible to develop a true VoIP application for the Blackberry environment. That topic is worth its own post so I will refrain from commenting more on this very frustrating issue…
We’ve had a busy few weeks here at GIPS. We had our fourth quarter earnings release, we announced our video survey of 1,200 business professionals throughout Asia and North America and we let the Apple application developer community know that our cadre of engineers has enabled the iPhone with video chat and video conferencing capabilities. Additionally GIPS will be exhibiting at Mobile World Congress next week to demonstrate both our HD voice capabilities and importantly video on mobile devices. Video and mobile have been more in demand from our customers in the last year and our business with customers in 2009 reflects this.
Mobile World Congress is the largest show in the industry with upwards of 50,000 people within the mobile communications industry attending. It’s also a place that a lot of business is concluded, new products are launched and where we see what is happening in the market on global and local levels.
While GIPS will be at the conference to learn we’ll also be demonstrating our technological strengths. Innovation comes from many small companies such as GIPS – perhaps technology that will present the industry with the type of innovation that will help drive business during the coming years.
GIPS will be at the show to make a difference and to demonstrate that you can truly see and hear the difference with GIPS. If you’re coming to the show you are more than welcome to stop by our stand in Hall 2. Hope to see you there.
Earlier this week I listened to a webinar from CommuniGate on HD voice. (In fair disclosure they are a customer.) It was interesting because you had three companies in the chain of HD voice – GIPS, CommuniGate and Deutsche Telekom.
The benefits of HD Voice were discussed and the subject also addressed why network operators should view it as an excellent value added service particularly for the SMB market. While the main focus of VoIP services to date has been cost reduction over quality, HD voice heralds a new generation of high-fidelity voice communication services, which allows business and consumer users to have a more natural and reliable voice communication experience than ever before.
Mobile operators are missing significant revenue opportunities in the SMB market where workers on the “move” need increasingly reliable high-fidelity voice quality to interact freely with other users and automated systems. It is estimated that the worldwide SMB market for VoIP services will reach $10.4 billion by 2014. Most of this revenue potential, however, will be directly dependent on how well integrated and easy to use various media will be, and to what extent it will deliver quality features not previously available to SMBs at accessible price points.
CommuniGate is beating the HD voice drum to get carriers to listen. Their MobileOffice, a Unified Communications hosting platform, enables network operators to deliver high-value, HD Voice enabled communication solutions to Small Businesses. To explain CommuniGate’s offering in more detail they have released a whitepaper that looks at FMC as the bridge of two “HD capable” networks; the mobile and the Broadband IP Network (Internet).
What I especially like about CommuniGate is they don’t just talk HD voice, they act on their beliefs. To make sure everyone “gets” the HD voice message – they’re offering a free trial. So rather than read about HD voice, why don’t you try it out for yourself.
There are many things in our daily lives that we come to accept and have given up questioning as to why we tolerate it. From shoddy call centre service from credit card companies (“please press 1”, “please press # to listen to all your options again”, “sorry I didn’t understand that command, please call back goodbye”), short-changed at the below-average lunch place, (yes I still go!), no phone signal in the centre of the City to the daily bus driver who waits to see me running before he takes off for the next stop.
However, it looks like there’s a chance I can get my voice back when I read about Orange announcing it will be the first to offer mobile High Definition (HD) Voice for its customers in the UK – well a trial anyway with full nationwide roll-out due later in 2010
HD Voice offers sound quality that my concert-damaged ears can understand. As a company with offices across the globe and people I have to talk with people across different continents with varying accents, which can often be difficult to understand over the telephone. I accepted it for too long but now that issue is resolved when I’m able to use Nimbuzz, Yahoo or CommuniGate to speak with HD Voice clarity. However, often I’m stuck talking on a mobile with terrible-I’ve always put up with this – sound quality.
News that Orange is stepping ahead with HD Voice should send shudders down their competitor’s spines. There’s very little to differentiate one mobile service to another – they might tell us there is but really? However, HD voice on a mobile telephone that’s a huge differentiator for a device that is designed principally to talk.
As the baby boom generation go gently into retirement and their hearing deteriorates the offer of HD voice will be attractive. As too, will all the younger generation who have endured countless noise exploding concerts, nightclubs and iPod blasting music…HD voice must be and will be heard.
I’m a firm believer that HD Voice will herald a new era for mobile communications and a new standard for the telecoms industry – however, it’s that domino effect that companies such as Nimbuzz, Yahoo, Google, Skype and CommuniGate that herald change – let’s hope there are some other mobile carriers that will brave an HD world.
So if you want your voice heard come and meet with GIPS next month in Paris at the upcoming HD summit and hear the difference.
2010 hadn’t even arrived before two carriers announced plans that made the last decade seem like it happened 20 years ago. AT&T asked the FCC to drop the requirement that the provider maintain a legacy landline infrastructure, signaling a move to an all VoIP system. A day later, France Telecom’s mobile unit, Orange, launched its HD voice service for UK subscribers. All you have to do to realize how quickly technology is changing is imagine reading that sentence in the year 2000 (or even 2008).
The AT&T request has all kinds of interesting angles that I am sure we will touch on as the week progresses (is AT&T trying to skirt FCC regulation? what happens to the 20% of consumers who rely exclusively on the PSTN? what does this mean for other service providers?) but what I am most interested in is the supposed death of the landline. I am not sure how others define the term, but a VoIP line is still a “landline” in my book. AT&T is still interested in providing home phone service; it will just be over IP instead of PSTN. I have written before that I think home phone service is going to eventually fall by the wayside unless service providers can actually offer innovative features or services (e.g. video calling) instead of treating it like an ugly stepchild and bundling it with Internet and TV. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about an all IP infrastructure. I think there are definite benefits (HD voice) to home VoIP service. It is just up to the provider to offer these benefits to justify the home phone’s existence.
Speaking of HD voice, Orange’s service should be a huge step forward for voice quality and consumer satisfaction. I read one blog post that claimed, “For most of the European languages, current scenario call quality is good enough”. I have to disagree. Maybe it’s because I have been to too many loud concerts, but most of the time I find cell phone conversations unbearable and have a difficult time understanding the other party. In ideal situations, cell phone technology typically yields a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of about 3.8, with most users hanging up when the quality drops below 3.5. When you factor in the background noise and echo that come with mobile conversations, I can’t be alone in my disdain for mobile quality. By expanding the audio frequency to 7 kHz, mobile users in the UK should be able to hear each other a lot more clearly.
As a frequent consumer of pop culture criticism, I am well aware that it is almost 2010 thanks to all the “Best of 2009” (or now “Best of Decade”) lists. While sometimes predictable and cliché, I look forward to reading about the albums, books, movies and band names that unite or divide critics. It’s a good way to discover music or movies that I had previously overlooked (this year’s winner: the Dirty Projectors) and it’s nice to take a look back at the year that was.
So, in that spirit, here are some of the most relevant stories in the telecom/VoIP/tech industry in 2009:
Net Neutrality Picks up Steam
With the new administration in Washington, the regulatory climate was noticeably different than the previous 8 years. The FCC began to look into possible monopolistic behavior in the mobile telecom market and the exclusive agreements between handset manufacturers and carriers. In addition, Congress offered proposals which would set actual rules around the regulation of the Internet. Major companies like Google, Apple and AT&T were all in the mix, and should be for the foreseeable future.
Android Offers iPhone Alternative
For all of us who were searching for a smartphone with iPhone-like functionality, but with a physical keyboard, a better network and an open platform, the Droid was the answer to our prayers. Perhaps that’s why Time Magazine named the Droid the “Device of the Year”. Subsequent news of a Google branded phone only fanned the competitive flames between Google and Apple.
Mobile VoIP Makes Waves
For years, pundits have been speculating about the arrival of mobile VoIP (I am sure at least blog or article in the next 14 days will proclaim that 2010 is the year). While I wouldn’t argue that mobile VoIP is here, or that it will soon be, it was a major component of the previous 2 storylines. One of the motivating factors behind the FCC looking into mobile operator behavior is carriers’ ability to block certain types of traffic (e.g. VoIP). In addition, Google Voice, while not technically a VoIP service, drew the ire of the FCC under allegations that it was blocking calls to rural areas. Also, the recent rumors surrounding the Google Phone indicate it may be an unlocked phone that will be sold without carrier subsidy, and configured to offer free VoIP calls. While mobile VoIP may not be mainstream, it sure is having an impact on the industry.
HD Voice Goes Mainstream
GIPS has been trumpeting the cause of wideband speech since the company’s inception. While the technology saw a great deal of adoption with the launch of PC-based calling services, it wasn’t until the marketing-friendly name “HD Voice” came along that it really took off. The number of companies announcing HD voice solutions, combined with industry organizations pushing for adoption of the technology, point to a potential for mass acceptance of a new standard of voice quality.
This week in the US – AT&T rankled industry reporters, bloggers and their customers. Not only is their customer satisfaction at an all time low – but now the company announced it will “incentivize” customers to use less data. If the statement is taken out of the spinner I think one can safely read: AT&T will punish customers who use too much data – Apparently about 3 percent of their smartphone customers are using 40 percent of data traffic. However, no model has been proposed so it’s ambiguous as to whether moderate users will also get hit badly by a tiered-pricing model. ..
Even with mobile tempers flaring here – I received a report from Frost & Sullivan that indicates mobile phone subscribers will continue to grow and actually cross the 50 percent barrier globally sometime in 2013.
It’s an extremely significant barrier especially when one considers that mobile phone adoption began in the 1980s and nearly seven billion people will populate the planet by 2014. So, 3.5 billion people will be using mobile phones to talk, text, tweet, IM, pay, play, socialize, film, record, video chat even watch TV
I wonder if landlines, which have been in existence since the end of the 19th century, ever passed the 50 percent mark globally (answers on a postcard if you know the answer) when you consider large parts of the world such as Africa and Asia that traditionally had very few landlines?
While telephone quality has changed little over the last century – the opportunities for dramatic improvement in voice quality with HD voice is something to get mobilized about.
