Category: Telephony

What the future will bring

I was having lunch with some of my previous work associates yesterday. We got to talking about mobile phones, the “bricks” of yesterday and the “razor” thin ones of today, and also about VoIP services (since half of us had it). This reminded me, since I’d read it sometime ago, but no longer remember who exactly coined it, that in the past, there were 3 ways to get information into your home:

  1. the phone line (which was bi-directional),
  2. over-the-air broadcast (one way) radio and
  3. broadcast TV
  4. well, maybe 4 if you count the newspaper or a magazine

Today, we still may have

  1. a phone line,
  2. the radio
  3. plus possibly also satellite radio
  4. broadcast TV may be completely replaced
  5. via cable (or satellite)
  6. but also there is a high-speed digital line that may be DSL (with the phone) or might come over the cable (with the cable TV)
  7. plus, in some areas optical fiber for the TV.
  8. Now we also have mobile cellular telephone service that’s more or less been for voice,
  9. but is also increasing being used for data as the bandwidth increases (this is where I’m working in the industry now)
  10. A few years ago there where smatterings, then rivers, now floods of WiFi and now WiMAX, or metro broadband wireless (there used to be a company just down the street that was heavily involved in just this thing in South America, because it’s cheaper to “wire” households up this way than with copper).
  11. There are plenty more fixed and mobile communications options than I can think of right now. My sisters, in rural Minnesota, get a slower speed version of broadband that’s built off antennas on top of granary elevators and mini-pizzabox sized antenna’s on their houses or in their yards. The distribution antenna works for distances up to 15-20 miles. That and power are the reasons why it’s slower speed. This was put in place because the local telco switch was running out of ports for dial-up and basic voice, back 10-15 years ago, and an enterprising young man saw an opportunity and worked it, when the REA type telco couldn’t possibly move fast enough.
  12. And there’s a chance you’re still getting a newspaper delivered, too.

The point is, the source of bandwidth pretty much does not matter any more. You’ll get your telephone service from somewhere in a network cloud, or maybe from some other network cloud if you move around. If you’re like me, you have application services that tie the endpoints together so that people calling you in one cloud don’t know that you’re answering in the other cloud.

This is largely going to be the same for your TV service. Our soldiers in Iraq, I’m told, have versions of IPTV that are more modern versions of the “triple play” that interworking of the broadband/phone/TV service, which is of course, carried on a military backbone or perhaps a leased facility back to their families here in the states. I don’t begrudge them a bit for a service such as this, but it sure heralds the future for us, doesn’t it?

Content is changing, too, newspapers are still around, but increasingly they have to pay attention to the online world. Oh, the basics of reporting and fact gathering is still largely the same, the tools are different and faster to use. Just lots more amateurs out there…

Radio, and now TV, are putting broadcasts (with and without commercials) out there for distribution via RSS or maybe forcing the website experience. Some media outlets are not getting “it” trying to force users to watch live (Nielson still has clout) in order to keep the same old revenue sources. Others ARE getting it, and that’s why there are DVD’s of whole season of TV shows, or in some forward looking markets, downloads or even feeds of shows. So, distribution models change and with it, the revenue dynamics. I freely admit I don’t have time to listen to that radio or TV show anymore in “real-time”. I want my “time-shifting” rights! So, podcasts and TiVo/MythTV – I think these are good things. Once bitten, “don’t take my TiVo away!”

In the future, it really won’t matter if the pipe is

  • FIOS (Fiber to the curb ala Verizon landline or my Dad’s cable company in rural MN),
  • EVDO Rev. A (VerizonWireless and Sprint),
  • HFC (CATV company), or
  • copper wires (traditional telco).

Telco infrastructure is getting to the point where we don’t care what it is, as long as it’s there when we want it and it’s economical enough to fit into our lives without making us think about it. Content and basic service models are increasingly looking for alternative revenue sources, rather than the basic Alfred Hitchcock “word from our sponsor” model which really just shifts costs from minutes of use (MOU) into a bundled cost of an advertised product. MOU will still be there for a while, thanks to the telcos and more importantly, the mobile phone era. But something better than the current draconian measures envisioned with DRM and lawsuits is needed.

We’ve come a long way since when I would travel and my mother used to ask me to call collect and ask for Uncle Arvin, who was never there; it was just a pre-arranged signal that I had arrived at my destination. Let’s hope the coming years see as much of a change for the better as the last few years.

Happy Holidays.

DECT News

Previously, link here, I had posted regarding DECT, or Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications technology, as something that was going to come to the U.S. in a bigger way.

If you’ve been in a computer store lately, you may have seen this wireless phone using the DECT standard. Earlier this month, there was news (link here) that some suppliers of those phones are now building wireless VoIP into them. So it’s beginning to look like (quoting the article)

  • computers still do intensive work on the Net, but
  • people will use wireless DECT phones to
  1. make IP phone calls,
  2. listen to Internet radio or
  3. check a phone directory.

These enhancements are at most a year away; streaming audio will be coming after that in 2008.

NEW ACROYMN: “CAT-iq” – Cordless Advanced Technology-internet and quality.

Gads, more and more technology – what’s a person to do… Seriously, this may have value though, if you’d rather not “boot up” the PC to do these sorts of things. If you keep the PC on all the time, well maybe not so much… On the other hand, if you have a choice between a dumb wireless phone and one that has more intelligence, without a lot of cost differential, then duh

Power Outage

This morning, we suffered a 1.5 hour power outage. It reminds me how sensitive technology is to the basics, such as electricity.

I have a UPS battery backup for my router and cable modem, since for convenience I might want to use the VoIP phone line for an hour or so, during the early part of an outage. This VoIP line is used throughout the house, but as I say – it’s a convenient to keep it running.

My burglar alarm has it’s own battery backup, so it will still work for a couple of days, dialing out on the land line.

The laptop(s) have a battery, but then they are only good for a hour or 2.

Reminds me that about a year ago, I spec’d out what it would take to go totally solar. The answer was $75k, about $20-25k out of pocket.

Oh, and Murphy was alive and kicking this morning as well. Since we have well water here, without electricity, there isn’t much water pressure to do an entire shower. I called my neighbor to hook up a garden hose to his house (something I’ve done in the past) since he has city water. But he wasn’t home.

Hey, I used to be a Boy Scout, right? Some water in the sink, boil some water on the stove (I am civilized, ok) combine in the sink and tah dah… I can at least sponge bathe and wash my hair… Water done, combined, all set to apply lather…

the power comes on.

IPTV

IPTV, or Internet Protocol delivering TeleVision (and not Iowa Public Television) is supposed to be a big market. These last few years, lots of companies have been investigating and some have been actually doing something. The subscriber levels for this year, 2006, is supposed to be 8.3 million, worldwide. But, only 500,000 of these subscribers are in the U.S. That is 6.02%… A lot of these subscribers are in western Europe, with Gartner indicating 3.3 million are there, this year. Other deployments are starting in Shanghai, Guangdong, and other Chinese cities.

The market is supposed to explode. Gartner is indicating a 5 fold increase in 4 years in western Europe and others indicating a roughly 4 fold increase worldwide, over the same timeframe, to 34 million total subscribers. At the high end of the speculation, 63 million subscribers have been quoted in the press.

If the U.S. has 500,000 subscribers now, who has them? Parts of Rural America, in that there are hundreds of Independent Operating Companies (IOCs) who are running IPTV today. Places like Ramondville, Texas and Lenora, Kansas. Nearer to me; Fallon, Nevada.

Outside the U.S., IPTV is rolling along, in places like Belgium and Brazil, Sweden and Slovenia, Ireland and Italy. With price sensitive Germans, the expectation of interactivity is expected to help generate money for the carriers. In France, it’s sold in consumer electronic stores, similar to our Best Buy or CompUSA. Gartner, again, predicts that by the end of this year, roughly half of IPTV subscribers will be in France. As the other western European country’s growth catches up, France will still keep a third of these subscribers.

Why haven’t we heard about this much here?

  1. Elsewhere, the combination of low entry prices from competitors and incumbents (like France Telecom) and the idea that content from firms like the Pay per View players are willing to embrace new distribution channels. According to Gartner, however, a lot of the subscribers captured via this aggressive pricing have yet to be completely “hooked” on the IPTV service itself, it’s simply packaged as part of their “triple play” bundle. The factors that follow contribute to situations unique to those of us here in the U.S.
  2. The phone companies, here, usually have copper, “twisted pair” for the “last mile” to your house. Running voice at 64kbps is what this last mile distribution was designed for. A pair of wires, and thus 2 possible phone lines for each house, who could want for more? A couple of decades ago, this was satisfactory thinking. DSL internet services, rolled out for the demand for broadband internet, uses this same twisted pair copper wire to get to a “DSL modem” in your house. The investment they’ve made in DSLAMs in the central office may not yet have paid off enough, for them to start to look at upgrades to this infrastructure. The newer services, such as streaming HD TV, or even a basic DVD movie compressed in MPEG2 (a popular video compression technique) is 5-7 Mbps of bandwidth that will obviously put a strain on this kind of infrastructure. So, either they must add hardware in the “last mile” part of the network, to enhance and strengthen signals to go farther or stay stronger or they must go to something the industry calls Fiber to the Curb (FTTC). Verizon calls this FiOS, or Fiber Optic Services, and they are pretty much ready to push the button. Very expensive stuff, but the market is seeing some action here from these smaller operators, the IOCs, rolling out fiber. In Sanborn, MN, where I grew up, Cable TV (which is also the phone company in Sanborn) service was so troublesome with an aging HFC network, that about 5-6 years ago, the Cable company dug up all of the streets and laid fiber to everyone’s house. My dad has fiber at his back door. Sanborn, MN – population 434. No IPTV yet, but he certainly has a pipe large enough if and when they finally offer such a service. A bigger population area, different fiscal issues, but as operators such as Verizon are demonstrating, not necessarily impossible to solve.
  3. The U.S. legacy cable operators, the MSOs, have been delivering your standard TV over coax cable and this is called Hybrid/Fiber Coax or HFC (From the head-end to your neighborhood, it’s fiber, to a device on a telephone pole or in a vault, appropriately called, the “fiber node” and then it’s coaxial cable to your house). All of the channels are “broadcast” in separate frequency channels along this infrastructure simultaneously. Telephone service and regular internet service to your “cable modem” is delivered similarly, in a channels right alongside the video. Digital TV is delivered right down these same channels, encoded in something called QAM, decoded by your digital set-top-box. There is a lot of money invested here in this infrastructure and it is not yet financially compelling for the MSOs to change.
  4. Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 – Specifically, this is the house version of the major overhaul of the last Telecom bill. The senate had it’s own involvement in the issue, but basically, we have a lot of rule making to be done before it’s clear who/what/where/when money will be made by this or that operator, distributor, content provider, etc. – too many rules, it’s hard for anyone to predict and thus only agile companies, ready to move after rulemaking, will gain rewards.
  5. Telephone companies have never delivered TV content before. Sure, some are supplementing their voice and internet offerings with satellite TV, but let’s face it, they are just putting their name on the satellite TV offering from another company. Licensing, broadcasting, distribution rights – well, the MSOs have a lead in this space.
  6. The MSOs and satellite companies offer premium content right now, some of it in High Definition, or HD. To compete, and IPTV offering must be better than the MSOs level of the playing field. Better technologically: Effectively, it must be better than what European and Asian operators are delivering in the early MPEG2 encoding technology. It’s almost expected now, that a true offering must be multiple HD streams, each 12-20 Mbps – not 5-7 Mbps. They also must offer DVR or “TiVo-like” services, either home based or network based, for the streams coming into the home or the movie libraries the carrier is involved with. Sometimes it is barely likely that 5 Mbps is getting down to you, must less multiple HD TV streams. The “broadcast flag” issue over who owns the right to push advertising at you and force you to watch it (also tied into the Senate bill) may hinder IPTV’s acceptance, particularly if it screws up who can and cannot produce the devices that will “play back” IPTV. Better services: Interactivity (think sports betting in some countries) may be key for adoption, something that is harder to do in today’s world (not to mention that gambling is a real political problem here in the U.S.). The success of SMS texting linked to reality TV has shown the desire for the public to interact, paying real money, but with SMS the revenue is going to a wireless carrier, not necessarily the IPTV carrier. So, interactivity within the platform (think “Deal or No Deal” kinds of interactivity.)
  7. Finally, distributing this streaming mess of bits around the house to what ever device needs it, The HDTV set, a desktop computer, a 2nd TV set, a laptop computer. Should this be Ethernet? Or Ethernet over Power cabling? Or WiFi? It’s this last point that a small company, named Ruckus Wireless, with several announcements this last week, is becoming a key player. They secured $16 million in additional financing from telco and electronics company’s VC arms. They also announced shipping wireless product for reliably delivering these video streams within the house, thus eliminating the potential wiring mess a consumer or professional installer would have to undertake. A lot of their technology is involved in the dynamic tuning aspect of the antenna systems. Essentially, they “beam” the bits to the TV set, instead of 360 degree broadcast to everyone nearby, because the antenna system locates the remote station and “locks on”. Problems with walls and beams are resolved in this manner. Essentially, Ethernet performance, without the physical cable. Ruckus has indicated that industry-wide there is an approximate cost of $400-500 for a 3 room install as part of IPTV launching. This is per subscriber.

So, quite a lot that has to come together before you can literally sit down in your favorite chair, flip on the HD to watch your favorite game over an IP infrastructure. Except, if you are in Wyoming or Kansas.

DECT Technology Coming to the U.S.

DECT, or Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, is coming to the U.S. in a move largely framed by the FCC and the DECT forum, an industry association that has been lobbying the FCC for some changes to previous rules.

What in the world is DECT? Well, first of all, the “E” used to stand for European, as this was largely a cellular telecommunications system that is built with small cell sizes, roughly about 600 feet in diameter, originally coming from Europe. It has enjoyed some success there, where it has been standardized, by ETSI, the European standards body involved in Telco. Their work on DECT started in the late 1980’s culminating in the first ETSI standard in 1992.

Earlier in the 1980’s, work was being done to develop the technology, which largely centered on work in the UK and inSweden. Perhaps the first driver was to digitally “enhance” the analog cordless phone offerings that were starting to show up, at that time, from Asian manufacturers. Digital, of course, was better than Analog – less “crackle” and interference, higher density of phones in a given space, security, moving between “cells”, just like the regular mobile phone network, but with unlicensed users rather than the more formal and really high-tech cellular base station that belongs to the mobile phone company and serves hundreds of users over much larger cell sizes.

These were all reasons for DECT, not necessarily for the individual at home, but more for the business user, perhaps with a large space to cover, like a warehouse, and/or lots of people needing service, such as an office type of setup. Mobility is the name of the game, rather than a fixed phone at your desk. This is not to say that business is the only user of this technology, almost since the beginning, manufacturers have been offering business anddomestic types of offerings, with Siemen’s Gigaset being an example of among the first, and continuing on through today with newer and newer models. Today, you can purchase a Gigaset that is coupled with Yahoo! Messenger w/Voice capabilities, the VoIP offer from Yahoo.

The standards have covered and defined the radio part of this link between handset and basestation as well as the handover that occurs between the basestation and an office switchboard (PABX) or public telco switch (or your local terminal adapter in the VoIP case).

Largely, what has changed to allow this technology to move to our shores has been a decision by the FCC late last year to set aside some radio spectrum in the 1920-1930 MHz frequencies for unlicensed users. Originally, this spectrum was to be sold off in the PCS auctions and there was an FCC requirement for new users to pay a sizeable fee to help relocate existing users of the radio spectrum. Some changes to the channelization requirements and a significantly lower fee have helped to make the U.S. market more attractive. In Europe, DECT operates in a different frequency band, 1880-1900 MHz.

Why is this better than what we have today for digital cordless phones? Better range is often cited as one advantage over existing 2.4 Ghz or 5.8 GHz phones. Other things to note are simultaneous calls on a number of handsets, quality of service, security, no-toll internal calls (think PBX extension to extension types of calls), ability to handoff call from one cell to the next (which means a very large area, like an entire warehouse, can be covered with lots of base stations), push-to-talk, and of course, Voice over IP (VoIP) integration.

Interference is less at 1920 MHz because a company may have their Wireless LAN setup and running at 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz. Other interference usually comes from baby monitors and microwave ovens. A lot of firms marketing in this area are focused on small to medium businesses, largely due to the expectation that a really large enterprise will have voice and data integrated together in their Wireless LAN infrastructure and not need DECT, because they would be probably expected to have Voice over WiFi types of phones, sometimes noted with the “VoWLAN” acronym. A small company may not have the resources, nor the money, to fully integrate voice and data on their own Wireless LAN infrastructure.

Who is bring this to the US? SpectraLink is one such company, having recently acquired Kirk Telecom of Denmark. Uniden DECT1060 tinycopyKirk is one of the leading suppliers of DECT equipment in the EU. SpectraLink’s main focus will be on small to medium sized enterprise business products. There will be some consumer products. Uniden is introducing its first set of cordless phone products based on DECT, announced just this week. Uniden had earlier announced an equity purchase and partnership with SunCorp Technologies of Hong Kong, another manufacturer of DECT products.

So, perhaps some advantages for a small to medium business looking to push into wireless handset technologies for it’s employees, i.e., where mobility of the employee and communications needs both need to be met for employee productivity, but where they may not want to make the larger fiscal and more complex jump into VoWLAN. And this from a piece of technology that has had a decade to mature.

Mobile Phones for Kids

disneymobileMobile Phones for kids? An interesting concept, and one which Disney Mobile, working off the Disney brand, hopes will be engaging enough for parents to purchase the extra phone and perhaps a few extra minutes under the family’s “plan”.

The big money may be in the parent’s plan and usage, getting the parents to switch to Disney Mobile and then add in the small extras that the children’s usage represents. Continuing to build brand-loyalty, by offering these extra services such as tracking the location of the phone (and thus the child) as well as controlling the usage of the child, no indiscriminate texting or calling unless it’s an emergency (and no, calling Suzie does not constitute an emergency) – these are good concepts. And unlike, ESPN Mobile, they appear to be poised to succeed.

Keeping parents and kids more in contact with each other (“Where should I pick you up after dance class?” or “Where are you going after the library?”), controlling usage so it doesn’t break the bank (with call and text restrictions during certain hours). You won’t get this initially from the commercials (which are now flooding TV and other outlets), there the message is aimed at the kids and how cool it is – thus the lobbying of you, the parent starts – coupled with the peers and perhaps older siblings, flaunting them at school using them everywhere.

Note, some schools have banned their use during school hours, so check with your kid’s school and if you get your child a mobile phone, from Disney Mobile or another operator, educate your child. Confiscation for the remainder of the year does no good for either you or the child. The reasons schools are so strict on mobile phones is because they (and pagers before them) have been used for crime (drug dealing, starting fights, porn) and even cheating on tests. Kids are pretty smart – there is even a ring tone that most adults over 30 cannot hear. Just Google “Mosquitotone”… Soon, a visual Mosquitotone detector for teachers appeared on the market. This is just like military strategy on a battlefield…

If your child walks a distance to school and you’re concerned about any aspect of safety, maybe you’ve been already thinking about this… After a little investigation, you will find that not only Disney, but other carriers as well, have surprisingly low cost plans to add the extra phone to a “family” plan. Disney Mobile, in it’s advertisements, is touting the GPS (Global Positioning System) features later in their commercials, so via your phone or a website, you can find out where the phone is and presumably where your child is. Disney does not exclusively have this feature (remember the little red dots of the Sprint Nextel commercials?).

You may be thinking that a mobile phone for your child is unnecessary. They are alien to our own childhoods, and if you’ve immigrated recently to this country they may be really alien (South Africa didn’t have TV until the 70’s). As a parent, the joy is to decide what is necessary vs. automatically giving them everything that everyone else has. You should decide based on today’s world, today’s issues, rather than your childhood world.

Remember, in the 80’s children were coming home from school and spending hours on the phone, a separate land line phone wired into their room, talking to their friends and dates. In the late 90’s, with the advent of instant messenger services from AOL, Yahoo and MSN, they were IM’ing each other. So, the paradigm shifts yet again…

Price should also be in your consideration, mobile phones are easy to loose, but with the GPS services and the cost being relatively reasonable, this part of the issue has continued to be minimized. Literally, it is not so much of a financial consideration as it was 2-5 years ago.

Like any piece of technology, it can be promoted as a lifesaver or disdained as a yet another “gimmie”. Especially if your child wants to be independent and he/she is aware or notified (as some of the services promote) when you are tracking him/her. Your child may wonder if you’re going to let them breathe anytime soon.

My advise, investigate the plans, note the features and prices. As parents, talk to each other about the pros and cons, then engage with your child, find out how they would use it, educate them on the issues at school and elsewhere. Make an informed decision.

Good luck.

New from BenQ-Siemens, a concept mobile phone

It is titled the “Black Box,” this handset has no keypad, it uses a touchscreen for all functions. The user interface seems as if it can be accessed 2006-09-29 black box.0via the icons, going from phone to camera to calculator modes just by touching the screen in the right place. This phone should be universally interesting to anyone, regardless of language.

We may never see the phone in product, as this is a concept phone, but the idea is very interesting.

Mobile ESPN pulls the plug

Mobile ESPN, Launched in the Fall of 2005 on a number of US mobile carriers and then in February 2006 as an MVNO, a Mobile Virtual Network Operator – those business entities that look and feel like a mobile phone company, but really rebrand or reuse mobile network infrastructure from someone else, like Sprint Nextel, VerizonWireless or Cingular.

Now, however, they are announcing that they will close up shop. Advertised to be “the first national U.S. wireless phone service specifically targeted to sports fans” Mobile ESPN was bringingpersonalized sports programming from ESPN, along with ring tones, sports news, info, statistics, photos, logos and streaming video to its customers.

By the end of the year, customers will have some options about what to do and where to go to seek service. On their website, the indicate that “As of December 31, 2006, Mobile ESPN will cease its wireless service provider operations and work to deliver our content and experience through another nationwide carrier.”

Almost at the same time as ESPN is pulling the plug, another MVNO launched, Red Pocket Mobile, marketing to Chinese Americans and offering low cost international service on calls to Asia. Unique selling points? Calls to US or China, Singapore, and Taiwan are the same price and an iConnectHome service would allow people in Asia to dial a local number there and reach the subscriber here in the US, i.e. no international long distance.