Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wake Up Carrier

It was a time when VoIP used to be in the news and geeks used to like it just because it was a change and it did things in more techie way even though the quality of service it provided were substandard. In spite of its lousy quality people found it something interesting to try because it was free of cost in the internet.
And now again it seems like there is endless news around messaging, VoIP and video calling and lots of organizations actually implementing VoIP in their organizations. They are growing very fast recently and lots of companies adopting it in their products. Google Voice, Skype services, and Apple announcing Facetime Support for the Mac with 19 million such devices shipped since June, might explain how it has captured the attention of the big companies as they see a big emerging market in it. The issue in VoIP still remains because of a conception that still there are technology issues in it but it needs to be understood that it is the next generation of network technology and can’t be ignored.
The way messaging, voice, video, and chatting applications are on fire lately implies that VoIP will be the biggest competitor of carriers and finally the winner. It means that soon Carriers will become irrelevant in Voice and Messaging.
At present because of telco monopolies these companies are very slow to respond to the change and innovation. On the other hand VoIP is getting advanced both in technology and services day by day. And in Indian context, Gosh..! 3G is yet to be implemented by these companies.
Right now VoIP applications like Skype enable its users not only to make voice and video call but provide other services like enabling the user to view distant users desktop and lot more. Now Imagine the future of communication on your smartphone: you’re on a video call with your significant other across the world on different networks, you tap your screen, and instantly their phone screen mimics yours as you flip through photos of your trip while continuing your call. Or imagine sending out an MMS to a group, and when each of your friends open it they immediately tap into a live HD audio/video stream which you’re broadcasting to everyone. No delays, no dialing, and no going in and out of different apps—it just works. All of these amazing use-cases, and more, will be enabled by 4G wireless standards. This is because 4G is 100% IP-based, which is what the internet was founded upon.
Today, voice is routed separately from data on mobile networks due to  “circuit-switched” architecture. With LTE, the first phase of 4G, voice and video sessions will be packetized and sent over the network from a smartphone just like any other application layer data, which will open a range of new capabilities. This is because the future in mobile communication is being written at the application layer — both by innovative giants like Apple and Google, and smaller startups such as GroupMe and Twilio — not at the infrastructure layer. The carriers had a chance to provide a better voice and messaging experience with 4G, and to charge a toll for that experience, but they are missing that window. What the carriers really need to do is get out of bed and resolve how voice will be packetized, then move forward and deploy it but right now they are not interested in doing it because they have better profit at the carrier.
This kind of slow change and lack of innovativeness at the carrier will lose its customer to VoIP with new and better services to be provided at lower cost in future. This provides a scene that there is going to be some big Mergers and Acquisition at the telcos if they don’t provide the services at the application layer.