A hype revival of vintage mobile video communication in MWC 2011

Let's get back to 2004, the hype in Mobile World Congress for the first time in Barcelona is about video communication. Thanks to 3G and embedded cameras in the mobile phones, people can proceed to a mobile video call from their device. It's huge. Telecom operators imagine gateways to enable subscribers to proceed with video call between a mobile and a PC to compensate the low numbers of nascent 3G phones. Two years after, this turns to be a failure. Damned, consumers are not using it.

Several reasons have been given at that time : cameras not powerful enough, screen definition too low, requirement of "high quality real time bandwidth", low willingness to use due to high intrusiveness and, finally, too difficult to take a continuous movie of its own image in good condition for the other party (sun, image stability, etc...).

2011, Mobile World Congress, perhaps one of the last time in Barcelona. The hype is back on ... mobile video communication. What can explain the revival ?

Some progress have been done on the technology side, especially on the devices now much more powerful in terms of CPU, screen and camera. Moreover, Skype, which has largely contributed to popular usage PC-2-PC of video, is everyday increasing its penetration on mobile phones.

However, the major factor could be the support of the magician Steve Jobs through Facetime, the video communication service from Apple. US investors suddenly start to poor money in these technologies. Of course, these "dollar cow-boys" did not necessarily participated to the hype 8 years ago since US was still at that time an underdeveloped country in terms of mobile usage, fighting to make CDMA EVDO operational.

Despite device technology evolutions and financial support, some challenge remain on the way to a large penetration of this service on mobile phone. Video communication still is intrusive and image stability did not significantly improve when you have your mobile in your hand.
Another main hurdle - requirement for a high quality network - will still exist for several years. Watching Youtube, users can benefit from buffering in the device, which is not possible with real time communication. This thus requires a continuous quality and bandwidth, which is challenging for a good quality. Just have a look on your device how many times you switch from GPRS (G) to Edge (E) to 3G (3G) to HSDPA (H) and you will see the stability of the data network, especially when you move one meter in your office or when your neighbor starts watching Youtube (because you share the cell data capacity with your neighbors, you like it or not ;-).
Moreover, in terms usage, some analysts state that consumers would use the service to show what is around. Capability to record a video and send it by MMS or email (on smartphones) exists for years. MMS video traffic is very low due to high price for upload of large volume. Imagine the price range when telecom operators want to guarantee a higher quality all along the call.
Finally, since telecom operators face problems with huge data traffic generated by smartphones and USB dongles, they will normally price the video call higher than voice call. Who is willing to pay more for a good quality video call ? It's true that Skype video calls are used on fixed Internet but using video or not is always the same zero price. Willingness to pay is probably the final killer of mobile video communication.
And if some operators would offer video call service at the price of voice calls in order to maintain price of a voice/video call revenues, they would significantly increase their cost without increasing the revenues. Better use this bandwidth to offer more low consumption services.

I had the chance to live the complete previous cycle of mobile video communication. We thought at the beginning that we were very successful since we signed a lot of contracts with major telecom operators but consumers brought us back on earth a bit later.
So, if you are in this business, have fun but do not expect your venture to be funded for a long time. Dollar cow-boys will probably stop soon pooring money in bottomless pit when they will discover the lack of fruits and remaining hurdles of previous experiences.
There are probably much better ideas for new telecom services, focused on low bandwidth for higher profitability of the whole value chain.

Future will say.

Benoit Quirynen

France : VAT increase can turn to a free IPhone for consumers

In France, government has increased VAT rate on Internet access from 5.5% to 19.6%. Based on this increase, most of telecom operators (Orange, SFR, Bouygues) increase their price to more or less reflect the VAT increase.

However, according to this site (http://eco.rue89.com/2010/12/30/mobiles-internet-et-si-on-resiliait-tous-nos-abonnements-182755), this price increase is considered as a possible breach on contract. Consumers who contracted a package including a mobile phone with a subscription are now allowed to keep the phone, stop the contract and ... re-initiate a new contract possibly including a new phone. So the expensive I-Phone acquired a few weeks ago within the scope of a contract can become yours ... and you can get a new one, restarting a new contract.

That's where sponsoring (or bundling subscription and phones) of mobile phone for recruiting new subscribers of expensive subscriptions or membership can turn to become very expensive for operators.

In a world of expected continuous inflation during next years, telecom operators would be well inspired to better study their pricing, contracts and bundling strategy instead of applying linear changes. As consumers, we should probably be even more careful reading terms and conditions in the future.

All this clearly benefits to mobile phone manufacturers. Apple, Samsung, Nokia and the likes but also Google through Android could accelerate their sales in France beginning of this year if this trick turns to be applied by a lot of consumers.

Price increases are also announced in Belgium. Will the same apply ?

To be continued.

Benoit Quirynen

Telecom - why not simply deliver a better service ?

Blogs, articles, books, everywhere in the world strategists are discussing about the battle between internet boys and telecom elderly. Why are Internet boys so successful, in a kind of continuous hype curve, while telecom elderly are perceived as old-fashioned even if the second ones provide the necessary pipes for the first ones to operate ?

This interesting discussion was reenforced this week due to the Broadband forum.
There is certainly nothing wrong to raise the question and, even better, it's important for the whole society to find the right balance between the two sets of dinosaurs in order to support further evolutions.

But, before engaging in some hazardous strategies, telecom operators could perhaps simply deliver a better service. It's not about inventing yet another stuff. It's all about services around voice, messaging, data access and 3rd party premium services - all the services used by large panel of subscribers.

We can distinguish two aspects : provide a better user experience and solve all the numerous small inconsistencies which are very annoying for subscribers, eventually leading to a complete loss of trust.

Why the hell is the Skype user experience better than my phone experience ? I don't ask for a free service. It would nice but I understand it would not be sustainable. I just ask a mobile user experience as convenient as Skype.

The second improvement concerns the loss of trust that I still have in my telecom provider. Why the hell do I face a problem each time I activate a service ? It's true that I receive more alert messages than before, assumed to explain unusual situations. Receiving alerts when call center tells you that there is no problem creates frustration. Not receiving an alert when there is a problem is even more frustrating. And finally, each time spending 20+ minutes waiting in call center queue is certainly not my favorite activity.

Telecom systems have been built as mushrooms growing, on a yearly basis, a few month after annual Mobile World Congress. In order to face the other category of dinosaurs, it's time for telecom to debug all these minor frustrating error cases or even better, time to streamline the architectures.

Let's remove dangerous mushrooms and structure the telecom landscape for an open field based on latest technologies and concepts - supporting a new wave of innovation.
Fighting or partnering with the other side ? Future will say.
To be continued ...

Benoit Quirynen

Microsoft Kinect - some good reasons why a "Kinect app store" could be soon announced

Microsoft could be the Santa Claus of the year thanks to its Kinect - a visual motion detection system combined with XBox360 to replicate Wii gaming experience without any remote control/wimote. A "Kinect app store" could have a huge impact on the overall multimedia and communication market.

Despite the fight between main smartphone manufacturers to federate application developers around their app store in mobile arena, Microsoft still applies the classical game console business model where the top-5 game editors provide a large part of the content. Zune will be the content platform. No signs of app store ... until now.

However, a "Kinect app store" would definitely re-position Microsoft against different kinds of competitors :

Against kings of smartphone apps. This would give Microsoft a first mover advantage against a possible extension of Apple or Google on TV. Both companies federate a large community of developers and already have thousands of apps available. Both Apple and Google could create home devices running their portfolio of apps on TV.

Against game console manufacturers. This would rapidly build the largest portfolio of console games. Of course, Sony & Nintendo could react but both companies don't have any experience with support of large communities of developers. Microsoft support developers for 2 decades. Of course, this would push Microsoft to some compromises in the way they currently deal with developers.

Against telco and SetTopBox vendors in the small IPTV market. Leveraging their leading position in IPTV, Microsoft could propose SetTopBox extensions/migration scenarios for consumers to benefit of these apps. Most of SetTopBox devices hardware setup is today probably too weak to support this kind of local applications, especially if it was not foreseen from day-1. Moreover, Microsoft significantly reduced the price of basic XBox. Simple SetTopBoxes are doomed to disappear.

It's obvious that KIN and KINECT have same roots. There is no coincidence. KIN project on mobile is perhaps delayed, waiting for Microsoft to focus on home during 6-12 months, develop an app position on this market and bring a compatible smartphone afterwards. Microsoft would then be the first player addressing the whole scope of multi-screen.

But even the large Microsoft is too small to develop all applications for this potential. Moreover, leveraging a community of developer largely supports the development of a device during beginning of this 21st century. So Microsoft probably has interest to delegate app development to developer communities. Apple paved the way of developer federation. Google proved that this model can be copied. Microsoft can then smartly activate developer communities, which has been his territory during last two decades, seeding their multimedia app portfolio from TV green field instead of overcrowded mobile arena.

Launching a KIN in June this year did not indeed make sense in this scenario. No obvious reasons for consumers to buy KIN now. If Kinect is a success, rules of the game then change and a complementary mobile phone then fully applies for young consumers and thus solve the issues addressed in this post and in this post.

Another market analysis published these days shows that consumers, when buying a new TV set, more focus on online connectivity than on 3D features. So consumers are demanding an Internet TV model.

Until today, this "Kinect app store" scenario still is an assumption. On the other hand, the fact that TV landscape and ecosystem will drastically evolve in the coming 5 years is a given.

So, game console manufacturers, telco vendors, smartphone vendors, gaming software editors have some time to prepare a battle plan taking the "Kinect app store" scenario into account. Telecom and cable operators would also be well inspired to analyse such a scenario.

Because, for all these players, there are so many things to do to anticipate possible next moves of the dinosaur.

To be continued ...

Benoit Quirynen

HD voice as a start for better communication ?

This week, Orange has announced arrival of HD voice. Telecom world starts to remember that "telecommunication" naturally includes the word "communication".

During last 20 years, focus has been set on connections: direct voice or data connection , differed through messaging. Nokia was the king with its "connecting people". Nokia currently suffers because Apple, Google and the likes now offer much more than a "connected device". Alcatel-Lucent was shooting for "always-on". We'll come back on these tag lines in another article.

Of course, connection is the foundation. Telecom world now has the opportunity to embrace a larger scope around communication, building on top of this foundation.

Many dimensions of communication still need to be improved. It's the beginning of a new decade where we'll see evolutions from a "connected world" to "communicating world".

HD voice from Orange is perhaps just a "meeto" to counter attack position of "Skype like services" actually offering better voice quality. As a consultant, I often use Skype for long meetings with partners, not only because it's cheap but certainly also because it provides unequaled voice quality. When competition is "cheaper and better", a tough reaction is expected. With LTE, Skype could definitely take over "voice service" from traditional telecom players.


HD voice could also be a first step of a "provide better communication" strategy, voice quality being a prerequisite.


Telecom players have the choice between two mainstreams :  Telecom operator or Telecom service provider. Either they continue to be a "connection provider" and they will be rapidly joining other utilities as power, water, and gas or they become a "communication provider". That's a decision to be expected soon before next round of consolidation.

In this last case, this will involve drastic changes, moving from a global approach towards a "multi-local" approach with:

• more openess,
• broader scope, much beyond technical aspects,
• and much more "localisation" of the services because communication is naturally linked to culture

Telecom vendors must also take a position, make a choice. Either they structure their offering to serve utilities or they jump in the world of communication. If telecom vendors are willing to engage inside communication, this will require drastic changes. Are they ready for it ?

To be continued ...

Benoit Quirynen