How to Counter Nokia, Skype & Deep Integration

In a previous post I've discussed my thoughts on how the announcement of Nokia to deeply integrate Skype into the N97 goes beyond the current 3rd party integration of VoIP, IM and presence. Mobile Network Operators of course would like to offer similar functionality and are thus not so happy about the competition. In addition, they are having a difficult time with it for the moment, as their competitive offer with the Rich Communication Suite (RCS), which is based on IMS, is still nowhere announced to actually make it into upcoming phone models.

When we look a bit into the future, however, I think network operators can make a compelling offer by combining a couple of elements which can't be matched easily by Internet based companies:

Embedding VoIP, IM and Presence in the Connected Home Network

In essence, the connected home network approach ties computers, TV, media storage, audio, etc. via Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable together and makes any content available on any other device. The crown is to also tie in the mobile phone / smartphone, which can then be used in cellular networks and via Wi-Fi or a Femtocell in the home network to offload traffic and to interact with the home network devices. Stack on that remote access to your data via cellular and you've got a truly connected home, a truly connected user and less dependency on data store in the cloud.

In this context, RCS makes a lot of sense and adds a lot of value. While roaming outside, RCS uses the cellular network for IM, presence, picture sharing, etc.. While at home, the Wi-Fi network takes over. The big benefit: Just one way (i.e. one phone number) under which you can be reached. The open point here is that I am not yet quite sure if the the mobile device can also to the IMS network via the users Wi-Fi home network or if a Femto is required for that. But at least with the Femto, that's something Internet based companies struggle with, there's always a 'media break' between the VoIP implementation and the default telephony stack in the mobile.

A big issue for RCS is how to create a critical mass so IM and presence. Here, I think it is necessary to have a gateway to other IM services such as Yahoo's or Microsoft's. An interesting approach, as it is not the Internet companies that go to operators but where operators go to Internet companies for the cooperation. It's been done before.

A lot of work ahead for operators. But I guess the embedded Skype client won't be that last word on the subject in its first incarnation, either.

Nokia, Skype & Deep Integration

This year at the Mobile World Congress, Nokia and Skype announced a cooperation that would bring Skype functionality to the Nokia N97. At the time I took notice of it but thought, well, I've already got instant messaging clients on my Nokia phone including presence and the partnership between Skype and network operator 3 has also brought Skype voice communication, or at least a special flavour of it, to mobile phones. So why the fuzz?

Well, I think it could be the deep integration of it all. According to the press release, Skype will not only be a third party program on the side but it will be integrated with other applications on the phone, especially the phonebook. According to the press release, Skype functionality such as presence and instant messaging will be embedded into the phonebook. Further I assume that since the press release mentions that Skype voice calls will be enabled over 3G and Wi-Fi, 'real' Skype Voice over IP calls (rather than the circuit switched approach used with '3') can be made directly from the phonebook as well.

It may sound trivial but I think such an integration would be very compelling to users. I and some other people I know have been using the built in SIP stack of (most) Nseries devices for some time now and very much value the deep integration into the overall functionality. SIP VoIP calls can be made from the phonebook or directly by typing in the phone number and selecting "Internet Call" instead of just pressing the green button. The phones can even be configured to always use SIP and only fall back to cellular when the selected network for SIP is not available. Very powerful as the SIP stack automatically activates itself once the phone detects the network(s) that have been configured for VoIP use (e.g. the Wi-Fi network at home). Hopefully, we will find the same deep integration of Skype with all its features. That would really distinguish it from current third party solutions which are always a bit on the side and require "specialized handling" that only few normobs (normal mobile users) would put up with. If all this happens, well, we'll see.

Also very important: Skype already has a critical mass, i.e. millions of users out there that already use it on a PC. An invaluable asset that is absolutely necessary to start such a service. Another things that speaks for Skype vs. other solutions (such as SIP) is the easy configuration: Only the username and password is required, plus maybe a selection of the networks over which you would like to use it. That's it. Compared to that, manually configuring the SIP stack is a black art.

Some Mobile operators have let it known that they are not very happy to see this happening. They argue that it will bite into their current business model and future opportunities. So, the first response was often that they would block it. But I think that would merely delay the process, if at all. I would be surprised if Apple, Google and others aren't already working on similar things. Also, I think some operators will make no attempt of blocking it, so people who would like to use the functionality would go there. But why block it? If people want to use it over the cellular network, they need a data subscription, which earns the operator money as well. So I am not convinced they wouldn't benefit from this as well.

Another approach for mobile operators could of course be to offer similar functionality. Not so simple, but not impossible, especially in combination with "connected home networking". More on that in a follow up post.

Zeebo: Gaming For The Next Billion

At a recent games developer conference, Brazil based Tectoy presented their new video gaming console called Zeebo for the next billion. Looking at the specs it's clear that it doesn't want to compete with other current gaming consoles, which have much more processing power. Instead, this gaming console is targeted at emerging markets where people can not afford other consoles and much less to buy high priced games. The interesting twist in this case is that Zeebo has a built in 2G/3G modem to download games so there is no need for establishing physical distribution channels of any kind. I guess that this will help to save a lot of cost.

I can imagine that at some point, the wireless connection might also be opened for other uses such as multiplayer gaming, e-mail, the web, etc. First to be sold in Brazil, Tectoy has brought Claro on board as a network partner and the Wiki article linked above mentions a lot of game companies who will supply games.

The chipset of the box will be supplied by Qualcom, who, according to this article, has invested $5.5 million into Tectoy and BREW will be used as a software platform (only mentioned once in the article, no great details on this, so this has to be investigated a bit further). BREW of course is already known from CDMA based mobile phones in the US so I there are already a lot of developers out there that could easily port their games to the console.

There we go, this is one of the first wireless but non mobile devices with built in 3G connectivity beyond todays mobile and notebook / 3G dongle centric devices for the mass market that I know of. And who knows, maybe a role model for a future wireless game distribution model for high-end game consoles.

HSPA Uplink Speeds from 1 to 11.5 MBit/s

A couple of days ago I had a post on the currently defined downlink speeds of HSPA from 1 to 80 MBit/s. As the uplink is just as important as the downlink for many application, 3GPP has also kept improving data rates in this direction. The following table shows the speeds defined up to Release 8 of 25.306.

  • Category 1 , 10ms:  0.7 MBit/s
  • Category 2,    2ms:  1.4 MBit/s
  • Category 3, same as 2 but only 10ms TTI
  • Category 4,    2ms:  2.8 MBit/s
  • Category 5,  10ms:  2.0 MBit/s (no, not a mistake, it's slower)
  • Category 6,    2ms:  5.7 MBit/s
  • Category 7,    2ms: 11.5 MBit/s

For the nitty gritty details see table 5.1g. To get to the raw speeds quoted above, divide the maximum number of bits per transport block by the transport block length (the tranmit time interval). Example: Category 2 mobiles can send up to 14484 bits in 10ms (TTI). That's 14484 bit / 0.001s = 1.448 MBit/s. Note that there are 2 TTI lengths, 10ms and 2ms. For higher speeds, shorter TTIs are needed and the 2ms block has to be used for maximum speed.

The speed increases are achieved by lowering the Spreading Factor from 4 to 2 (i.e. how many bits (or chips to be exact) are required to encode one user data bit on the air interface) and by increasing the number of simultaneous code streams (from one in category 1 to four in category 7).

A strong word of caution: Like for the downlink, these values are top speeds. The higher the maximum speed the less likely it is a user will experience them in a live newtork as the signal conditions under which they are achievable are only available in an ever shrinking part of a cell. Most users will not see such high speeds, especially when they are indoors and have no line of sight to the base station antennas.

VOLGA Forum Publishes Stage 1 Specification for CS Voice over LTE

Not too long ago I reported on the foundation of the VOLGA (Voice Over LTE via Generic Access) Forum, which, as the abbreviation implies, wants to specify and implement a pragmatic approach for using the current circuit switched voice solution can over LTE. Looks like they have been quick to start their work, as the Stage 1 document for the proposed service is now already available on their website. Stage 1 is the first of 3 steps to describe a service from the basic concept (stage 1) to methods and procedures (stage 2) to the fine details including composition of messages (stage 3). Beyond what's already been written in 3GPP TR 23.879, I found the following interesting details:

  • The interface between the Volga Access Controller can be either A (GSM) or Iu (UMTS), in either their tradition variant or over IP. So if IP is selected the VOLGA solution is end to end (compare also to my R4 MSC post).
  • Transcoding Free Operation (TFO) shall be supported
  • H.324M for Video Calls shall be supported (great, completely forgot about that)

So, as you can see, quite some interesting details in the document, despite only being a stage 1 document.

Can't wait to see stage 2 and stage 3. Congrats to the VOLGA forum for the swift action!

Book Review: Wireless Broadband – Conflict and Convergence

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Wireless Broadband – Conflict and Convergence. Sounds interesting, I decided, so I got a copy, not the least also because I know the work of Vern Fotheringham's co-author, Chetan Sharma, which I find very interesting and I have quoted him in my recent book.

Everybody always says the telecommunications market in the US is different from the rest of the world and this book explains why. The authors first go a bit back in time to explain how the telecommunications act of 1996 was designed to introduce competition in the US telcom market. 12 years later, the authors contest an utter failure of the policy, with AT&T and the baby Bells back in control both of the fixed line telephony, DSL and wireless sectors with little hope for change on the horizon. It's very interesting to follow the twists and turns and to compare it to what happened in other countries in which similar regulation attempts have been undertaken, sometimes with more, sometimes with less success.

It's a bit of a shortcoming of the book that the authors have not undertaken this, since similar decisions have been taken elsewhere, often with more success due to fine tuning over the years or by using a different approach to regulation altogether. Also, in my opinion, the book is a bit too optimistic on the influence WiMAX will have on the overall competitive situation. In today's world, where it is not enough to be a powerful player in only a single country, even with 300 million people, I have my doubts if the single nationwide WiMAX provider in the US can really make a difference, with wireless devices not optimized for voice and produced only for a relatively small audience. While GSM and CDMA based networks in the US share the later problem, they still have a big advantage with their inherent voice capability. Well, time will tell.

So no matter if you live in the US or somewhere else and would like to know why the telecommunication sector in the US is what it is today and how it could potentially evolve in the future, this book is definitely for you!

HSPA+ Speeds in Which Areas

I keep mentioning in posts on HSPA data speeds that one has to be very careful when using such numbers as they represent the theoretical maximum that is only reached very close to the base station. In various presentations, one can often see graphs where speeds are shown over the percentage of users, i.e. what speeds 95% of the users are experiencing to the speed only experienced by 5% of the users. But what does that mean when plotted over a geographical area?

Ericsson has done a great job of visualizing this in their 1/2009 edition of the Ericsson review on page 8 figure 2. I can't reproduce it here, but I encourage you to follow the link and check it out for yourself, it's very insightful! As you can see in the 3 pictures, which represent various stages of the HSPA+ evolution, the direct benefit of adding higher top speeds gets more and more limited the higher the speed.

What the pictures don't show, however, is that subscribers not enjoying the best radio coverage do also benefit from higher speeds, in a different way though. By having at least some users in the zones where data can be transmitted faster, users under ordinary conditions benefit because the overall cell capacity has increased, as some uses can transfer their data faster, thus leaving more time to serve other users.

Great visualizations, thanks to Stefan Ström, Dirk Gerstenberger, Johan Bergman and Fredrick Gunnarsson for the article!

In Case of Emergency (ICE) Information on the SIM card

During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, I heard from Adrian Scrase for the first time that 3GPP has specified how to put information on the SIM card for "In Case of Emergency" (ICE) events, i.e. to help first responders to identify someone and to contact their next of kin.

A great idea and now that it is specified it will hopefully become a worldwide accepted feature. It's not in current phones and SIM cards yet so it will take a couple of years for the feature to be added. Let's keep our fingers crossed a critical mass is reached so people actually enter information and first responders actually use the feature.

As somebody asked me over at Forum Oxford at how it will work in practice, I've had a look at the standards:

  • The user enters ICE information like names of persons, relation to these persons and phone numbers. For details see 3GPP TS 22.101, A28
  • During an emergency, the information can be retrieved by pressing '* * *'. That's specified in 3GPP TS 22.030, 6.8
  • The information is stored in a new file on the SIM card referred to as EF(ICE_DN) and the format is described in 3GPP TS 31.102

Carnival of the Mobilists (G20 Edition) at London Calling

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It's time for another Carnival of the Mobilists and this week's edition is hosted by Andrew Grill over at London Calling. As always, a great read and I fully agree with Andrew on the post of the week by Dennis Bournique where he explains that despite recent misinterpretations, the iPhone does not account for more than 50% of the US mobile data traffic.

So for the latest and greatest from the mobile blogosphere, head over and enjoy!