The Firefox WebRTC demo video is a cool one

The Firefox video showing new ways to share images, videos, files or whatever is just cool. 
It all integrates in one smooth user experience, bringing your friends and colleagues close.

It is easy to see how systems based on WebRTC will challenge current proprietary players.
And once again, we will see incumbents trying to slow down evolution or even stop it.
They will be working hard to move the battlefied to other areas where proprietary elements come to play. Exciting times ahead.

WebRTC: an enabler for embedded devices?

The Internet of Things calls for intelligent peripherals. It would be nice even low-cost devices would support CoIP. Technologically, the issue is not so much about implementation capability. Of course any cost penalty is highly unwanted.
However, I would argue that the most important factor here is the market fragmentation in CoIP standards implementation. There is uncertainty of standards to be supported and fear of their incompatibility and cost of possibly exhaustive testing.
Now it will be interesting to see if WebRTC will change things.
Of course implementing basic underlying technologies required by WebRTC takes time and effort.
But at least Plantronics will be doing some cool things. 

Wearables is a natural first step. But a dynamic CoIP interoperability and capability in e.g. a smart sensor would have certainly a lot of use cases.
Waiting eagerly for news from hardware players.

VoIP and push notifications (e.g. Skype): consumer experience?

Can one really get a good VoIP experience when Push Notifications is used to wake up the B-party app?
Let's take the Skype case.
It seems they have made changes to their plans over the course of this year.
At least what Skype says so, in February the story was:

The company noted that some other VoIP clients on Windows Phone can jump-start into the foreground when a call comes in using the standard push notification system (which Microsoft has had in place since the original release of Windows Phone 7), but that this wouldn't work for Skype — they say it takes too long to process the notification, open the app, and set up the call to make it practical. On iOS and Android, Skype is able to keep its agent running whether the app is in the foreground or not, which allows calls to ring immediately.

But now, Skype is utilising Push notifications.

Last week, if you recall, Microsoft announced Skype for Windows 8, a touch-friendly app that appeared in the Windows Store the same day Win 8 went on sale. Now, with Windows Phone 8 getting its big reveal, the company is following up with a WP8 version, which Microsoft says is coming soon. Like the new Windows 8 app, it runs in the background, delivering push notifications even when you're looking at something else. 

Emerging Issue 1: 

How is a VoIP (realtime) service consumer experience impacted by Push Notifications?

If A wants to contact B over e.g. Skype, then if Skype is not in foreground in B's device, there needs to be a wake-up by the push notification.
Then, the app is activated, and then the actual call setup signaling starts. 

All this may slow down the response times experienced by the consumer.

Emerging Issue2: 

What if one is roaming abroad? For the consumer this is typically expensive and she would prefer wifi.

Now I many Push Notifications systems use the cellular channel only.
What if roaming is off? No way for incoming calls if the VoIP app is not in the foreground?

There are a couple of possible reasons why e.g. MS/Skype has designed it this way. 

First one is the battery consumption. From that point of view, it makes sense to have Skype in the background of course, rather than refreshing itself continuously.
But the VoIP apps in some other systems, e.g. Symbian could reside as default in the foreground with quite good battery times.

Second one I have heard is that Windows Phone 8 is not a genuinely multitasking OS or rather, the multitasking services are open to first party apps only. 

WPCentral got the word from a source they trust that this improved multitasking will only work for 1st party apps. To take advantage of this functionality 3rd party developers will have to use a small hack and list their apps as " GPS apps". However it's not clear if this will influence the certification process, which it might.

Of course it is easy to come up with conspriracy theories also, especially in the Skype case.
One is that operators have been concerned of Skype and MS combination taking the call revenues. It can be argued that push notifications create less load on the networks (but how relevant that is in 3G coverage needed for Skype?) and therefore operators have in essence ensured that the circuit-switched call remains the primary means of communications in Windows Phone devices.

Comments welcomed. Will be keen to check out how VoIP apps utilising Push Notifications perform.

Telefonica: A Super Service Provider?

Telefonica is now standing out from the operator crowd. 

It is now rolling out TuMe (based on Jajah) acquisition, with no revenue targets. TuMe is about offering OTT VoIP by Telefonica to its customers.
"If you can't beat them, join them" is a way to say it.
Tu-Me allows Telefonica to expand its scope and serve customers anywhere.
The next step sounds even more interesting, cloud-based telco. From the story above:

The next stage, to be rolled out later this year, is called TuGo, and turns the offering much more cloudy as well as generating some revenue. TuGo users will be able to move their mobile number into the cloud service, which will route incoming calls to whatever device they happen to be using as well as permitting outgoing calls from that device to any phone - billed to the customer in the usual way. TuGo redefines the customer: they are no longer subscribing to a mobile telephone service, they're subscribing to a phone number which will drift between mobile and fixed networks as best suits them.

The really mind-blowing thing is if they are really able to separate services from network ownership. Or rather, what used to be a mobile network will be just another access network:

The vision is for service and carriage to be separated entirely, just as LoveFilm delivers video over a home broadband connection, so one could take a telephony service from O2 and cellular carriage from Vodafone or anyone else, assuming that was economically viable.

It is more than interesting to note how the open-source movement (Firefox OS) will align with the interests of the operator. A flood of HTML5 phones overtaking the market...?

The third step is also logical, ie. opening up APIs to the developers. That needs to happen however rather fast, with Twilio gaining ground in the marketplac.

To summarise:
It seems that Telefonica is looking to be a "Super Service Provider".
I know the term is a little vague and boring, but that's what we used when discussing various provider concepts when at Nokia some years ago.

VoIP: Verizon dancing with Google

Some interesting news. Verizon offering integrated VoIP with Google Apps.

From the story.

Verizon has launched a new cloud phone service for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) called Virtual Communications Express. The voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) service integrates with Google Apps to offer click-to-call functionality from email, calendar, and chat.

Observation 1: 

Now Google Apps, as we know, are web-based.

It will be interesting to find out about implementation of the Virtual Communications Express.

VCE needs not be based on (prereleases of) RTCWeb necessarily, but let's put it this way: would not be surprised if it was.

Observation 2:

Competitively, it appears that this is a pre-emptive move from Verizon. Better for Verizon to offer its own VoIP, rather than Google offering Gtalk (which it will of course do, sooner or later). From the story:

The devil's advocate--or, better yet, the truly bootstrapped small business--might ask: Why not just use Skype or Google Talk alongside Google Apps?

Observation 3:

It is interesting to note that Verizon value-add here is customer service.

Makes sense. I recently heard someone joke "has anyone heard of Google customer service number"...

Feature comparisons aside, Verizon apparently intends to flex its customer support muscle here. "We've found in the SMB space it's really important that there be a high touch, high customer care installation," Dalrymple said, adding that an "implementation coordinator" will be assigned to each new account to oversee the process from sale to deployment.

Observation 4:

Not surprisingly, it seems that this service has some very evolutionary elements from customer point of view. Traditional telco strongholds ie. PSTN-connectivity and numbering important:

Deployment takes seven days, according to Dalrymple; if you're porting over existing numbers, that will take about twice as long, but Verizon will issue temporary numbers in the interim.

Germany NGN Interconnection...but where is IMS?

Interconnecting VoIP networks I thought was the job of IMS and related peering setup (IPX?).
Now it seems that XConnect is doing it in a partnership. And the XConnect I know has emerged from Internet VoIP technologies, connecting the Internet VoIP islands.
Definitely an interesting case to be followed. If we see more of these, it will change the world.


From the story:
The DE-CIX NGN service resolves these challenges by offering national and international network operators a secure hub for NGN interconnection, with benefits including:

• Multilateral NGN interconnection to multiple networks, by-passing the PSTN, and reducing the need to create and manage numerous commercially and technically onerous bilateral IP interconnects
• Improved Voice quality and support for higher-value multimedia services
• Number portability corrected routing via a Centralised Number Portability database (CDB) to ensure accurate call routing
• Policy control to define and manage the technical terms of each interconnection and support for different settlement models between operators
• Reduction of capital and operating expenses, transit charges, and resource requirements for creating and managing interconnects, from interoperability testing to implementation

WebRTC could be huge...but where is MS/Skype?

Today, September 5th, Nokia launched two new Windows8-handsets.
Instead of focusing on the devices themselves (which deservedly are getting attention elsewhere!) let's talk of an emerging Internet technology standard that could fundamentally change how we communicate: WebRTC.

Basically, WebRTC could revolutionise how we communicate.
Reason is that it will enable Web developers to include voice and video communications to the web page development.
Think how you retrieve information from the Web, from any www-site. The promise of WebRTC is that communications will become as friction-free.
Think of a hotel chain. They can embed a WebRTC call-to link in their web pages and enable consumers to talk to their agents.
No need to download a VoIP client, just do it from any browser.

Until now, the VoIP providers have in reality been isolated islands, but communications moving to the browser that could change.
Let's remember, VoIP-in-browser as such is a known solution, but here we are talking of a standard, meaning the user needs not install proprietary plugins.
While this sounds elementary, the VoIP and Web industry could change with the new transparency.

But we are not quite there yet. Summer was an interesting one for WebRTC.
The good news was Google promoting WebRTC in its IO conference.
Clearly, Google and the browser vendors are leading the way for WebRTC.

But what happened then?
Microsoft (remember, MS acquired Skype some time ago...) entered the stage.

They made a comprehensive proposal on how they see WebRTC.
The concern is that if MS has its way, the WebRTC will either change course or diverge.

The MS proposal could change radically the concept of WebRTC.
One issue is the need for lower level APIs they see. This would in turn require more functionality at javascript layer, meaning burden to the developers.

Also, it is interesting to see that MS wants IETF to take network conditions into consideration. That is what the mobile industry has argued for, while IETF has always developed their solutions to "generic IP networks", assuming their performance will be adequate.
Now the word in the industry is that MS wants to slow WebRTC down, simply because Skype is the dominant VoIP network, and a closed one. This is of course very logical. Meanwhile, Google (and browser vendors like Mozilla Firefox) want to move on.
So, the game is on.
But, Google Chrome supports WebRTC basic functionality early version today, and seems others will follow.

Then, how does all this impact Nokia? Well, many Nokia devices support wifi and LTE is around the corner. LTE is an excellent bitpipe for VoIP.
Question for Nokia is: will MS/Skype be left off the WebRTC train?