Asynchronous Communication – Why I like Instant Messaging

Despite having been quite a skeptic a couple of years ago when it came to Instant Messaging (IM), I have realized these days that I have fully integrated IM into my working and private life and today I wouldn't want back. In fact, if somebody calls me on Skype these days without sending an IM first to ask if I am available or to let me know what it is about, it feels a bit strange, almost like an intrusion.

Communicating with IM people

I usually don't call people on the phone that regularly use IM. In most cases the questions I have can be answered in a few words. No need to call and 'hard interrupt' the other person or myself. To me, IM seems more like a 'soft interrupt' with the option to ignore for a little while to finish something else first. I can even continue my work and once I have the answer I can quickly go back and fill in the gaps, if the task at hand permits.

While the amount of incoming and outgoing messages remain reasonable, I can get answers and answer questions myself pretty much on the fly without fully interrupting the main task I am doing at the moment. Much more efficient than making a phone call for both parties involved.

I can also see right away when somebody is busy or not available. So instead of calling and leaving a voice mail, I can set a 'notification event' in my messenger so I don't have to guess when the other person might come back or waste time in trying to call.

Communicating with Non-IM people

Seeing people being present gives me a sense of connectedness and the reassurance that I can quickly get help or advice when necessary. With people that are not connected, however, my business practice is quite different. Here, the only way to contact them is by phone or e-mail. While e-mail is definitely less intrusive than IM, you never know when the other person reads it or when he will answer it. And making a phone call will definitely interrupt whatever the other person is doing or I might not be able to reach him at all. It feels a bit like walking in the dark or playing the lottery.

No mobile-IM yet

What I haven't come around to using yet is IM on my mobile phone. Not that it's a technical issue, there are enough mobile IM clients available. Maybe that's because I also don't read my business e-mails on a mobile device since my questions and answers I get/send by e-mails are usually longer than what small keyboards, screens and not being able to look up things in documents, support. Or maybe I just don't want to be bothered while in transition!?

Interesting though how many of my friends, co-workers and customers are using mobile-IM these days, even those that generally questioned the usefulness of Internet access from mobile devices a couple of years ago.

So my question to you is: How do you feel about / use IM today?

P.S.: Have you noticed that almost everyone now uses an avatar (picture) in their IM program. I wonder how that happened!?

Bye Bye ATM

While ATM is used as a transport technology in backhaul and core networks for UMTS and ADSL today it looks like the technology is pretty much on the way out in next generation networks. In LTE for example, ATM no longer plays a role, everything is specified only down to the IP layer. The technology used below is up to the network operator. In many cases this will be Ethernet over copper (e.g. VDSL), fiber or Ethernet microwave.

Another example is the VDSL deployment of Deutsche Telekom (DT) in Germany. According to heise magazine 22/08, DT uses Ethernet over a Gigabit fibre (802.3ah) to their outdoor VDSL DSLAMs. Ethernet is also used over the last few meters of copper cable to the customer instead of ATM. While the VDSL modems can still do ATM, DT has decided to use Ethernet in combination with VLAN (Virtual LAN) encapsulation (802.1q). At the moment, only VLAN-ID 7 is used for all kinds of data, but there are rumors that DT plans to use several VLAN-IDs to separate IPTV from normal Internet access in the future with their IADs (Integrated Access Devices) that support Internet access, IPTV and (SIP) telephony.

IMS Service Discovery and Sharing

Recently, while in the dentist’s waiting room I had a bit of time to read another article from the always very interesting Ericsson Review Magazine. In the 2/2008 issue there are lots of articles on IMS. In the article on delivering the optimal end-user experience, the authors describe that their IMS application environment allows to share with other users which IMS applications one is using. This way, one can not only see if it is possible to use a specific application to communicate with someone but it’s also possible to see which applications others are using and thus to discover new services. Kind of a viral marketing approach.

I haven’t read about this in any IMS articles so far and it strikes me as a good idea, not only for the IMS domain. From the article, it’s not quite clear if this is something proprietary of the Ericsson IMS client environment or something that was standardized in 3GPP or OMA. If this is part of an IMS standard and you know where to find it, please leave a note in the comment section.

Book Review: Unified Communication Solutions

Unified Communications – The holy grail of combining information technology and telecommunication. There are lots of different opinions on what exactly UC is and when I was offered to have a look at a book giving an introduction, I couldn't resist.

Unified Communication Solutions – A Practical Business and Technology Approach by David Kim, Michael Gibbs and Bob Decker, published by Nortel press, approaches the topic in four steps. The first part of the book introduces the reader to how the evolution and integration of messaging, voice telephony and business applications forms a Unified Communication Solution. Business processes are streamlined with UC by making business applications interact directly with each other and by improving the interaction between people working on a common project and goal.

The second and third part of the book then show how UC can be used to enhance business processes such as Customer service, Customer relationship management, Supply chain management, enterprise resource planning and sales force automation. Quite a thorough analysis which not only discusses UC but also gives an overview of how companies are run.

UC is not a low hanging fruit, as lots of thought has to go into how to introduce UC applications into business processes and how to secure them. By tying information and communication together, new angles of attack for the bad guys emerge and the final chapter of the book gives an introduction of how to secure VoIP, SIP and UC solutions.

Personally, I've been using some of the UC elements described in this book for a couple of years now. Take my VoIP soft-phone and the IPsec VPN software on my PC for example. I can't remember when I last used a desktop phone as I find headphones and a proper address book for phone numbers navigated with the mouse much more convenient than anything a desktop phone could offer. This has opened totally new ways of working to me as I am no longer bound to a specific place but can do my work from pretty much anywhere where an Internet connection is available. Over an encrypted IPsec tunnel my e-mail, SIP telephony and corporate IM work just as well as at my desk in the office, which I rarely use these days.

Thanks to 3.5G networks now common pretty much everywhere I go, I don't even have to worry much anymore about how to connect. The first question of many callers these days is 'Hey Martin, where are you today', because they know I travel a lot or work from home and simply can't tell the difference from the connection or the caller ID of whether I am in the office or somewhere else. That's UC in action.

What I am still missing in my personal setup is the proper integration of voice telephony in my business applications, i.e. in Microsoft Office and Outlook. But then, what would the world be without some room for improvement?

While the book talks about mobile devices in some places, it's clear that this is not really the authors domain and I think this part of UC was treated a little bit too lightly in the book. (Yes, I know, I work in the mobile domain, so that comment had to come…). Another area that I wished were a bit more  discussed is Web based tools for integrating communication functions into programs and web applications for communication inside the company and with the customers.

All in all, a great book and I managed to read it in about a week. In total, the book has 17 chapters and each can be read in 30 – 60 minutes. That's just the right time that can be set aside every now and then before other matters require attention or that train you are sitting in arrives at where you want to get off.

Traffic Shaping the Way I Like It – And A SIP Surprise

Almost two years ago, I posted an article about how downlink traffic over my DSL line is severely impacted when at the same time I am sending a large amount of data in the uplink. This is due to the fact that acknowledgments are held up by other uplink data which slows down the traffic in downlink direction. I also mentioned then that some DSL routers are capable of prioritizing traffic such as TCP acknowledgments and VoIP packets to reduce this impact. Now two years later, I bought myself a Fritzbox DSL router and could finally put it to the test myself. Seeing is believing!

And indeed, the difference to a standard DSL router is quite amazing. The first picture below shows how the speed of an ongoing data download is severely reduced while I sent an e-mail with a large file attachment. Once the e-mail was sent, the speed returns again to what my DSL line is capable of, about 6 MBit/s. The same test with the Fritzbox shows quite a different behavior as shown in picture 2 below. While one can see a slight impact once the e-mail transfer starts, but the overall data rate remains pretty much the same as during times without the uplink being fully loaded (600 kbit/s).

Next on the test list was a VoIP call while both uplink and downlink were fully used. To my surprise both the standard DSL router I have and the Fritzbox managed to handle the SIP call both from my Nokia N95 and via a VoIP soft-client on the PC I used for the download without a glitch. Voice quality in both uplink and downlink direction to a PSTN line via a media gateway in the Internet was flawless, no packet loss and also no perceptible increase in delay. Quite a surprise indeed, I was expecting some problems with my standard DSL router in uplink direction. However, there were none which means those VoIP UDP packets must have sneaked through well despite the high load.

Picture 1: No QoS

Standard dsl router-no-qos
Picture 2: Same test with QoS:

Fritzbox-qos

3G Network Stability: 8h of Continuous Voice, IM and Remote Desktop

This week, I've ventured far beyond my 'normal' 3G use by giving remote support to someone being connected with a notebook over a 3G link for over 8h at a time. During that time, we had a Skype voice session established with excellent audio quality, used Instant Messaging and e-mail to send and receive documents and I had a remote desktop session open to see what is going on and to directly lend a hand when necessary. All sessions were open simultaneously and there was not a single glitch with a single application or the 3G connection.

That's what I call network stability! During that time, around 300 Mbyte of data were exchanged. It's impressive to see that both networks and devices have matured to such a level. On the network side, Mobilkom Austria (A1) has to be congratulated for the stability and performance of their HSPA network and for offering Internet access with prepaid SIMs. On the terminal side, the Huawei E220 modem did it's part. Congratulations to all companies involved, it was a truely great experience!

The Nokia 5000 with OperaMini and E-Mail

Nokia 500 small
The battery of my 'voice call only' phone has pretty much given up after several years of use so it was time to buy a new low-end phone just for this purpose. Or almost. Inspired by this article of Krisse at All About Symbian, I decided to go for a Nokia 5000. While being an entry level phone and available for 90 euros without a contract, taxes and shipping included, it has a 320 x 240 pixels display that is really stunning. The resolution is the same as for example the display on the N95 but much smaller, hence, the the graphics are even sharper. With 65k colors the display can't quite match that of the N95 with 16 million, but it doesn't make a difference for the other main application besides making voice calls: web browsing.

Yes, you read correctly, web browsing. Nokia delivers the phone with Opera Mini pre-installed and I was looking forward to see how well web browsing works on such an entry level device. I quickly replaced the pre-installed Opera Mini with the latest version (4.1) as the original version had an ugly quick, it didn't save some of the settings I made in the browser. But the latest version works flawlessly.

Configuration and Startup Time

Launching Opera Mini takes a bit longer than on the N95 but 12 seconds is still quite acceptable. Once Opera Mini has started one can surf the web straight away. No APN or other configuration was required, as the Nokia 5000 seems to have an internal database of networks and their corresponding APNs. I tried with several different SIM cards and the correct APN was configured automatically in all cases. Well done Nokia, this is how it should be!

Page Load Times

Pages also don't load quite as quickly as on the N95 even though the device is EDGE capable. While downloading the latest version I could experience the speed gain of EDGE over GPRS. While loading a web page, however, the transmission is quite slow, probably because the browser is downloading and rendering the page at the same time, which seems to take a lot of processing power that is missing for treating incoming data quickly. Despite pages loading slower than on the N95, the experience is still o.k.

Scrolling

Scrolling up and down in the page is, yes, you guessed right, also slower than on the N95. However, using the full page up/down feature of the browser instead of scrolling line by line much improves the experience. Also switching off soft scrolling 'visual effects' in the configuration menu brings quite a significant speedup.

Memory Management

Memory seems to be quite scarce on the device. After loading a couple of big pages, a 'memory full' error message pops up every now and then with the screen remaining empty. Ignoring the message and reloading the page solves the issue, Opera Mini seems to use the notification to clear up memory. However, the number of pages one can scroll back is quite limited. Depending on the size of the pages, it's only possible to go back 2 to 4 pages without triggering a reload. On the N95 on the other hand, one can go back almost indefinitely without reloading earlier pages. Still, the experience is o.k.

No Multitasking

While being a bit slower than what I am used to which is quite o.k., there is one limitations which I have difficulties to cope with: No multitasking. While browsing the web on my N95 I am quite used to jump seamlessly between Opera Mini, the calendar to make notes when something comes to mind while browsing the web and the e-mail inbox to copy/paste links. The Nokia 5000, however, is a single tasking OS as far as user applications are concerned so I can't exit the browser without closing it.

The E-Mail Client

The second most important application on my mobile phone is e-mail. The S40 e-mail client looks quite o.k. and it gets all the required settings from a server on the network after typing in the email address. Impressive. The downside of automatic configuration is, however, that I can't get to the configuration information afterwards so I have no idea if my e-mails are encrypted during transmission. When configuring an e-mail account manually, this can be set during the configuration process and changed later on. While receiving email works quite well, the client can unfortunately only retrieve the full e-mail or only the header, but nothing in between. This makes the client completely unusable for me as I often receive e-mails with attachments. While I am usually not interested in the attachments on the phone, I'd like to read the message itself and not only the header. I can't quite understand why this feature didn't make it into the e-mail client!? But o.k. there's still the mobile web client for my inbox.

Summary

For phone that costs 'only' 90 euros, the Nokia 5000 is extraordinarily versatile. The biggest disadvantages I could make out are the somewhat slow but still acceptable scrolling in the browser, no multitasking and the missing support for partial e-mail downloads. On the positive side there is the Opera Mini browser that works really well, renders even full web pages just as on my N95 and also the auto-configuration of the packet data parameters. So if you don't have a lot of money and want to browse the web from a mobile with a good screen, this is the phone for you!

Qt on S60

This week, Trolltech / Nokia have released their Qt cross platform application framework for the Symbian / S60 platform, the OS and GUI of Nokia's flagship N- and Eseries phones. Qt is probably best known as the toolkit used in KDE, one of the most popular graphical user interfaces for Linux and programs such as Skype and Google Earth. The promise of this framework is to code once and deploy everywhere.

Qt does not only standardize GUI development across platforms but has many libraries to do other tasks such as networking, database access, scripting, etc. in a cross-platform way. With three mobile platforms now supported, i.e. Windows Mobile, mobile Linux and S60, it will become easier than ever do write mobile software for different hardware platforms.

Despite using the native GUI elements of the different OSes I wonder how Qt applications will look like on S60!? Will programmers be sensitive enough to customize the user interface of their programs to the look and feel of the individual operating systems, which of course reduces the benefits of the cross platform approach, or will they go for a more relaxed style and try to make the application work the same on all platforms they plan to make their application available? Or maybe the major benefit of this move is less cross-platform deployment and more attracting developers to the S60 platform that already know Qt? Time will tell.

A Prepaid Broadband SIM without an APN

In an ideal world you take your notebook wherever you want and that built in 3G modem or USB dongle gives you access anywhere. That pretty much works today while you stay in the country of the network operator you are with. As soon as you move out of the country, however, hyper expensive roaming charges spell the end of the fun. Mrs. Reding will surely improve the situation over time but it won't come quickly, especially for notebook access.

The practical solution today is to buy a prepaid broadband SIM, now available in many countries , and replace the home operators SIM while staying abroad, if the 3G device is not locked. The main issue for most users, however, comes afterwards. Usually, each network operator uses it's own access point name (APN) and sometimes even a username and password that has to be set on the notebook. This is an action that most people are not really very comfortable doing.

The thing is that this is totally unnecessary. O2 in Germany for example has recently introduced a feature in their network to accept any APN. As a consequence no matter what the user configures or even if he leaves the APN blank the connection will be established. While I don't like O2's approch to do it for all SIM cards, it would have benefit when being used in combination with prepaid broadband SIMs. Add to that a big fat note on the sales package that no configuration is required beyond putting the SIM in your already existing open 3G device and you've got a sure winner.

A simple thing to be done and I would not be surprised if operators in countries such as Austria, where you can buy prepaid SIM cards for Internet access in any supermarket for a couple of euros, would start to implement this feature soon to make it easy to switch to them. Switching to them, that's the incentive for them to do it! And a strong one at that.

So this is the practical scenario: You arrive at the airport in another country and after baggage claim you head straight for the next 'I sell everything and nothing' shop at the airport to get such a SIM. You put it into your dongle or notebook and that's it. Or even better, it's sold by the plane's cabin crew on the flight.

The only thing that stands in the way of this in many countries is the requirement to identify yourself when buying a SIM card. But in countries such as Austria and the U.K. where this is not required, it's totally feasible and operators have the will to think about it. And in countries were identification is required, how about identifying the user via a landing page where he has to type in his name, address and maybe credit card information that can be checked? In some countries like Germany, name, address and passport number is all that is required and SIM cards are activated by some prepaid vendors like that over the Internet.

I think many travelers wouldn't think twice about paying 20 euros for a gigabyte or so even if they are just in the country for a couple of days. And it's likely that most of them wouldn't fully use the 1GB anyway. A good deal I would say for everyone involved!