Communications

eComm in Amsterdam ― shameless self promotion

I've just wrapped up a focused effort that delayed blogging and many other things.  As a result, I finally submitted the detailed description for my plenary slot at eComm Fall 2009 which will be happening in Amsterdam October 28th-30th.  My abstract is not up on the website yet, but hopefully the next few weeks will bring details on my talk and many others.  For now, let me just say my title is
   Stealth Approaches to Legislating Open Spectrum
in which I propose what I hope is a novel approach to dramatically expanding the capabilities and commercial success of license-exempt consumer devices.

This will be the first time eComm has been held in Europe but, based on the first two eComm conferences (2008 and Spring 2009), this is the meeting for the future of communications.  It's not a trade show and it's not a mass event.  Instead, it's three days of rapid paced information ― high level, insightful and non-commercial.  Even more important, the people are very, very interesting.  It's not cheap, but it costs less if you sign up now (especially if you sign up before July 21st).  What's more, because I'm such an enthusiast, and I'm on the conference's advisory board, I've been given a discount code.  For an additional 20% off type in "BroughTurner" as the eComm discount code, i.e. where the registration form says "Click here to enter a promotional code."

I hope to see you in Amsterdam in October.

Opportunity Doesn't Always Knock. Sometimes It Calls.

The mammoth telecom industry ― fixed and cellular ― is in the process of being re-written. You can stand on the side and be written into history or join with the growing community that's writing the future. Opportunities have never been so great ― to influence how humanity connects, communicates and collaborates and to profit from radical restructuring.

YouTube's fine - Analysts don't understand Internet peering

As widely reported, Credit Suisse analysts have estimated Google's YouTube may lose $470M in 2009 and more in the future.  However, their estimates say Google will pay $360M for bandwidth in 2009.  I don't know how Google figures their cost of bandwidth, but anyone who understands anything about Internet transit/peering knows Credit is way off base.

Google does not pay for Internet Transit the way most tier 2/3 ISPs or most content providers must.  The economics are simple.  If you are a Tier 2 ISP, you have to purchase Internet Transit services from a Tier 1 network to handle that customer traffic which goes off your network and for which you cannot make other arrangements.  The most notable 'other arrangement' is peering.  If you have significant traffic to/from another specific network, you and the other network can both save Internet Transit costs by exchanging traffic locally, i.e. peering.  Of course an enormous amount of your traffic is directed to Google.  If you have a presence in any data center where Google has a presence, you would love to peer with Google, as that saves an enormous amount on your payments for upstream Internet Transit.

A similar effect plays out among Tier 1 providers.  If one tier 1 network cuts a special deal with Google, Google routes all their traffic through this provider and suddenly the other tier 1 networks have large asymmetries in their tier 1 peering arrangements.  Either they also cut deals with Google or they have to renegotiate their tier 1 peering arrangements to pay for the traffic asymmetry (something that's highly unlikely!).  Google is the one with leverage here!

I don't know what, if anything, Google pays for bandwidth, but it's not paying $360M for Internet transit.  Sorry Credit Suisse, you better go back to analyzing derivatives, credit swaps and other purely financial plays.

Google does have costs.  They have data centers in many parts of the world and they have a private fiber backbone that interconnects their sites and connects their private network to many, many potential peering points.  Operating their private backbone is a real cost to them and I haven't examined their financial reports to see if there is any way (from public data) of estimating their costs for this private network.

But until someone does this analysis, forget what you've read from Credit Suisse.

Can You See Me Now? Video-enabled call centers...

Some weeks ago, CRM magazine asked for an article on video-enabled call centers.  This idea is a bit futuristic for the US market, but such call centers are actually showing up in Asia and the EU, at least experimentally.

Think of calling a help line and being asked to point your video telephony handset at the control panel of the appliance that's causing problems.  That's becoming possible in some Asian and EU markets where most 3G handsets support video telephony and 3G penetration is well over 50% (and much higher in Japan).

In any event the article,

Can You See Me Now? 
Video-enabled call centers will change the company-customer relationship

is up on the DestinationCRM website.

Best conference bet for 2009 ― eComm 2009, March 3-5, San Francisco

I attended a number of conferences in 2008, both interesting and not so interesting.  One conference stands out, for the range of interesting speakers and the variety of interesting people I met.  That was the first Emerging Communications Conference, eComm 2008, organized by Lee Dryburgh.  Many of talks from this conference are available on Slideshare and as podcasts on IT Conversations.

eComm 2009 is scheduled to take place at the San Fransico Airport Marriott, March 3-5, 2009.  I highly recommend you check it out.

This is not a trade show with vendors hawking today's products and multiple tracks full of vendor product pitches. 

Presenters have been chosen for the quality of their proposals:  is it new?  is it disruptive?  what will the audience learn?  (As an adviser, I've been in on those discussions).  Like last year, the format is one track spread over three days, with 15 minute presentations, 5 minute lightning presentations, panel discussions and social time.  It all adds up to a veritable fire hose of information.

There's a list of speakers here.  Major topics for 2009 (so far) include:

* Mobile Social Networking (MoSoSo)
* Open Handsets & the Open Ecosystem
* Both Voice and Video Evolution
* Convergence of Media with Personal Communications
* Open Spectrum
* Open Communication Platforms
* Leveraging Cloud Computing
* Social Computing
* Towards 4G Wireless
* P2P and Decentralization of Telecoms
* Communications enabling business processes, especially B2C
* New Forms of Contactability and Connectability
* Emerging Markets

And last, but by no means least, if you mention my name you get 20% off.  More specifically, if you enter the promo code "BroughTurner" (case-sensitive) at the appropriate point during registration, you'll get 20% off the registration fee.  This works now, while early bird rates are in effect, and I'm told it will also work right up to the last minute ("late", not on-site registration), although then it's 20% off the full conference rate, and only if the event is not sold out!

I hope to see you there.

Mobile video-on-demand Yes! Mobile broadcast TV not so hot

I have an article, Going Mobile (TV), that's recently been published by MobileIN, a wireless and mobile information site.  In it I basically argue that major investments in mobile TV broadcast capability are less likely to pay off than investments mobile video-on-demand.

The biggest trend in commercial television viewing is personal video recorders like TiVo.  People want to watch TV content when they want, not when broadcasters schedule it.  The only exception is major sports events (the Superbowl or World Cup matches).  Even the evening news is frequently rescheduled for later in the evening.

The second relevant trend is growth in YouTube and similar web-based video content.  Broadcast TV went from 2-3 channels in the 1950s to hundreds of channels on a typical cable system today.  But consumers are also interested in the long tail of millions of videos that can only be served over the Internet today and, potentially, over the mobile Internet in the future.

Finally, survey's of early adopters of mobile video show music videos, movie trailers, weather, sports action clips, comedy videos, cartoons and amateur video shorts – typically a few minutes long at most – are the most popular content. In addition, it appears 85 percent of mobile video viewers watched viral videos (content sent or pointed out by others) rather than content they found themselves.

All and all, mobile consumers are looking for video -on-demand, not pre-scheduled broadcast TV.

So what's the logic for massive investments in spectrum, followed by even more money in new wireless infrastructure, followed by the need to sell everyone new handsets that can receive the new broadcast mobile TV channels?

Zippy interviews me on Mobile TV

Zippy (actually Richard Grigonis) got my views on Mobile TV for a series on TMCnet. 

I'm negative on broadcasting :-) but very positive on mobile video on demand and on the profusion of other video-related things that people are finding to do with their mobile handsets.

The Perfect Phone

Lee Dryburgh initiated a great thread in the Emerging Communications public group entitled What would your perfect phone be? There are 14 messages there at this moment with a lot of good ideas, but my first thought was the term "phone" is too limiting.  Indeed, some of the correspondents' ideas also go far beyond the idea of a telephone.  Here's what I want and fully expect to see, eventually.

The Basics

It's a mobile computing device that, as a platform, is at least as open as today's computers. 

It has unconstrained or "open" mobile connectivity to what today is called the Internet, i.e. it's able to exchange arbitrary information with any other device that's willing to participate.

I like Phil Wolfe's description of the included sensors:

Sensor overload. Movement, location, biometric, barometric, full radio frequency detection including notice when I'm being RFID scanned, Affymetrix-style food safety tests. The more my phone is aware of my condition and my environment, the smarter the apps that follow.

and style.

Wearable. Fashion, baby! I should have more phones than shoes, all doing the same things but with looks and form factors that fit my mood, my social set, my wardrobe, my activity. Form factors I want: pocket watch with fob, lapel pin, ear ring, tattoo, shoe lace, scarf, tie clasp, cuff links, mood ring, brass knuckles.

Identity and Security

This device will be my wallet and keys, so I need an easy way to guarantee it's only available to me.

Coordinating Communications

It's a computer so it can run my communications applications.  But the most important application is not telephony as we've understood it over the past 120 years.  Top priority is managing information about availability and current circumstances -- mine and that of people I want to interact with.  I want more than what's commonly called "rich presence."  I want location, current activities, health, and anything and everything that can be determined from a plethora of available sensors.

Then I want total control over who can follow my circumstances, who they think I am (multiple identities!) and what they see as my current circumstances.  Like Phil Wolfe, I may want to be able to lie about my current circumstances, at least to some people.  As Phil puts it:

When I'm out picking up porn instead of groceries, attending a dissident political meeting, climbing a wall during a combat mission, investigating a crime family, or meeting with my divorce lawyer, very very few people need to know. In fact, I want my phone to have selective memory and occasional amnesia.

Availability and current circumstances are critical to coordinating communications.  This is an issue that traditional telephony has never addressed, but with the advent of instant messaging, texting and Skype, most of my voice calls are preceded by a quick text exchange.  In many cases the text exchange obviates the need for a voice call.

Is there an overlap with social networking?  Absolutely.  Has anyone cracked the code yet?  Hardly. However we are beginning to see attempts to aggregate and filter our profiles, friends and communications across multiple social networking services.  There's a big need, a lot of activity and thus strong reason to expect big progress.

Communicating

Of course I want all options;  text, voice, video, 3D holographic virtual presence.  More importantly, I want the ability to select live two-way communications, broadcasting and asynchronous messaging, some of which may be near real time.  For example, there are occasions when voice is best but a live call is not needed or not practical.  That's why Voice SMS service is so popular (where it's available).

I also want to be able to archive (or not) all communication.  Think "life streaming."

The Digital Life

Finally, I expect my device to facilitate life logging and a digital life as proposed by Gordon Bell and Jim Gremmel.

When?

Obviously we're talking decades for some of this, but most people will have portable webcam capabilities within a few years and hard drive storage has pulled ahead of most people's ability to create or copy content.  Gordon Bell's full vision may be a few years off, but lifeblogging is real today.

What's the monthly cost?

Today we pay for telephone service.  In the future, I'm likely to pay for open mobile Internet connectivity, i.e. a mobile dumb pipe, but only as a fall back to open shared wireless connectivity built from the bottom up via user-to-user wireless connectivity.

I may also choose to pay people to provide other parts of this functionality as services, but everything I've described is based on devices and software which I will be able to own.

 

VideoSMS — Another cool service that avoids the problems of MMS

Video SMS, like Voice SMS, delivers an exciting service that works on any handset and any network.

Meanwhile, Multimedia Message Service (MMS) is mostly languishing.  In the US and much of the world, MMS is used for picture mail but hardly anything else.  There are several problems.  In most markets, there are a dearth of MMS capable (and appropriately configured) handsets, there are interoperability issues between handsets, particularly with video support or the lack thereof, and in some markets there are interoperability issues between service providers.

So new, simple, inter-operable services have emerged.  The first was Voice SMS, an audio messaging service that has taken off because it actually works with any handset and any network.  I’ve written about Voice SMS several times in the past as it’s a cool service and we supply platforms to many of the vendors in this market.

Today we had our first press release on a new service, Video SMS.  Maxis Communications, the leading operator in Malaysia, has launched their Maxis Video Avatar service in December, based on an application by NGC Systems and platforms from NMS Communications.

Like Voice SMS and unlike MMS, Video SMS is a messaging service that works with any handset.  If both subscribers have 3G handsets, the service leverages the 3G network to deliver an actual video message.  But in the more common case, where one or both of the subscribers are on 2G or 2.5G, the service still works.  Instead of an actual video message, the 2G user generates and/or the 2G recipient receives a voice message with an animated gif image of a lip-sync'd talking avatar.  If the recipient has a voice-only phone the service reverts to Voice SMS, but with a URL where recipient could view the lip sync'd avatar speaking the message if they can get web or WAP access.

From the user's point of view this is a cool new messaging service that serves the same needs as Voice SMS but with an added personalization element — animated avatars.  From the operator's point of view, it's a new revenue source with both message revenue and content revenue, as avatars can be sold just at ringtones and wallpapers are sold.

The key take-aways:

• Easy user interface
• Simple useful service
• Connects with any phone on any network

Smart Communications in the Philippines has also launched this service to their 27M subscribers. As they put it:

Video Avatar is a new P2P 3G video messaging service that combines lip-syncing fun avatars and a 30 second recorded message to create an expressive and memorable video message.

Joost entering world's most advanced P2P TV market, i.e. China

Gang Lu reports rather specific rumors that Joost is going to enter the China market on or around the Chinese New Year (Feb 7th) by partnering with the Chinese portal Tom.com.  That's not surprising as Skype partnered with Tom.com when they entered the Chinese market.  What's different is Skype was innovative everywhere in the world. 

Joost will have to play catch up in China, as the Chinese are the world leaders in P2P TV and P2P streaming media.  Well established Chinese firms like PPLive and PPStream pre-date Joost by nearly two years (see my earlier comments).  And today, in China, the P2P market is clogged with many more players like UUSee, Vakaka and Vatata.

Early entrants like PPLive focused on live TV in 4:3 ratio with simple user controls, perhaps for those familiar with TV but not with TIVO, however this is changing rapidly.  What's more, friends report performance has been excellent, even in early 2005.

Joost has not worked so well within China.  From one friend and from Google translations of Chinese reviews, it appears there are many places in China where the bandwidth requirements of Joost cause performance problems, even while PPLive works well.  Presumably this will be cured by local Joost support within China. In other words, I suspect a lack of local peers within China means, for now, too much Joost content must flow over clogged international links.  A local presence should cure that.

Meanwhile, Gang Lu describes a hybrid system (streaming servers and P2P bandwidth sharing) from Vatata which:

"... supports most of the video formats, including Microsoft, Real, Flash, Apple, MPEG1/2/4, OGG/MKV etc and H.264. Vatata system consists of two sub-system: Vata, the back-end streaming platform and Tata the front-end player. Tata is absolutely fascinating. It supports On Screen Display (OSD) and allows plugins, which means you can run multiple modules (e.g. instant-messenger, channel list, etc) on top of the video screen, which just sounds like what Joost does."

So it's clear Joost is moving into a very advanced market.  It will be interesting to see the resulting cross fertilization.

Emerging Communications Conference 2008

I'll in California quite a bit in March and April, but the highlight is my first week, when I'll be speaking at a new conference, eComm 2008, March 12-14.  While the conference in new, the community is established and fascinating.  eComm 2008 being put together by Lee Dryburgh, who was on the program committee for O'Reilly's eTel conferences.  When O'Reilly cancelled eTel 2008, Lee took the initiative to keep that incredible community alive.  He was soon joined by many others.

Click through the logo at the left for conference info.  Right now there's a board of advisors, an incredible list of speakers with more on the way, a wiki and a Facebook group with 170 friends!

The first thing I look for in a conference is interesting people, then new ideas.  eComm promises an abundance of each.  The focus is next generation personal communications and the schedule is set up for rapid fire delivery inlcuding many 5 minute and 15 minute sessions.  As far as new ideas goes, this will be a fire hose!

*** Correction: 12/21 ***

The conference is being held in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.  This easily beats the typical conference facility, but it means there are only 300 paid admissions available.  Registration has opened, here.  If you register before the end of 2007, the $1495 registration fee is marked down to $1195.

I look forward to seeing you there.