At this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon CTO Tony Melone re-iterated the carrier’s planned commercial introduction of Voice over IP over LTE (VoLTE) before the end of 2012. He also stated that 4 LTE-compatible smartphones will be available no later than this June.  These are dual-mode devices, using traditional 2G cellular services for voice.

Why is VoLTE such a big deal? Here are just a few reasons:

For customers:

• Since the technology is all IP-based , this will make it much easier to for customers to use a wide variety of mobile and mobilized UC applications that also include voice, including those embedded in communications-enabled business processes (CEPB) like click to call embedded in a CRM application.
• VoLTE calls can interface to carrier-certified SIP stacks and applications, just as SIP Trunk services do today. This will make it less cumbersome for both SIP-based mobile and fixed handsets to use the same application –either network-based (like hosted IP audioconferencing) or premises-based. I expect the arrival of VoLTE will facilitate the introduction of many more mobile and mobilized UCaaS applications than are currently available. With VoLTE, FMC may finally come into its own.
• The same methods to monitor and maintain session and application performance can be used across all applications. Of course, these methods themselves continue to, ahem, “mature”. They haven’t “arrived” yet, not by a long shot.

For suppliers:

• On the mobile carrier side, use of the same technology to support all mobile applications is a necessary precursor to ultimately retiring 2G (cellular voice) service. We have seen this before—with the complete retirement of analog cellular technology just a few years ago. This process will take some time, but when it does, it will allow the carrier to re-deploy all of its licensed spectrum in a much more efficient manner, supporting several more magnitudes of simultaneous sessions than it can today.
• It will provide the basis for mobile device vendors, applications developers and carriers to work together to create the necessary methods to offer better end-end security, and as alluded to above, meaningful end-end SLAs. Finally, it will become harder and harder for all mobile suppliers to dodge these legitimate enterprise requirements.
• It will set the stage to unleash great innovation—on applications, devices, and ancillary services. This includes collaboration and UC. And if mobile carriers do their work very well, it can also create a necessary cornerstone of potentially huge wave(s) of (multi-media) cloud-based services. When VoLTE becomes real, we’ll have the opportunity, finally, to see how much an IMS architecture that supports both fixed and mobile SIP stacks can deliver on all of its promises. Many of us who are friends of UC Strategies can hardly wait.

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility by Lisa Pierce
2 Comments »

The saying “All roads lead to Rome”, could for this week be changed to “All communication roads lead to Barcelona.” The big names in mobility are there; Ericsson, Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, Motorola, Broadcom, Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE Corporation and Huawei and more, but also IT heavy weights such as Google’s Eric Schmidt, Paul Otellini from Intel and Cisco’s John Chanmbers. The line between IT and mobility feels like they are officially gone. More and more users choose mobile devices to access the Internet, so it is not surprising that so many choose to visit this gigantic event.

Most interesting was probably this week’s announcement that Nokia partners up with Microsoft to use Windows Phone for their smartphones. This new strategy leaves a lot of questions, and the Nokia stock declined when the news became official. Nokia also negotiated with Google, but in the end they choose to work with Microsoft. This direction is not surprising since the world’s largest mobile phone supplier would have effectively created a duopoly with Apple iOS, if they had chosen Android over Microsoft. Microsoft has other challenges as well. Their efforts to claim the mobile device has not been as successful as many anticipated. The partnership with Nokia is really their chance. I am sure the two companies will work day and night to produce new phones. When Stephen Elop (former executive at Microsoft) president and chief executive officer of Nokia Corporation held a press conference after the Microsoft announcement he was confident, but made clear that they have a long way to go before this cooperation shows any results.

When Steve Balmer of Microsoft held his key-note he said that they will release two major updates to Windows Phone and make it possible to run Internet Explorer 9 on their phones. By using a hardware accelerant it will be possible to play h.264 encoded clips in the browser and get the same performance as running an application natively on the phone.

Ericsson announced a concept that will allow mobile operators to offer a cloud-pc together with Akamai. Ericsson explained that their vision is that our world is completely connected via wireless networks where everything is tied together using machine-to-machine technology. Hans Vestberg said that Ericsson will be the leading provider to the networked society. Ericsson is strong in mobility and broadband solutions, now they are investing in the third area, the cloud. Their service consists of a thin computer with a special version of Linux. Their servers use virtualization, network and security technology and was demonstrated running Microsoft Excel from a server in India via High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), high-speed 3G data services provided by cellular carriers worldwide that use the GSM technology.

But MWC is also about gadgets.

• Android is one of the big players where Google in only a few years have created a dominant position. MWC presented far more Android devices than any other.
• Motorola is back in the game again with new devises.
• Chinese company ZTE presented a number of 4G pad devices and thus trying to enter into the premium segment.
• Sony-Ericsson presented new devices before the show started. But for enterprise customers the business mobile Xperia Pro with built in support for device management, Microsoft Office document editing, and native Microsoft Exchange connector, a well-spaced QWERTY keyboard that slides out and Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
• Samsung presented a new Galaxy S II with larger screen, thinner casing, full HD, 8M pixel camera and voice control. They also demonstrated a new Galaxy Tab 10.1 with a 10.1 inch screen. But their strategic alliance with Adobe, Cisco and Sybase is even more interesting for enterprise customers and will be interesting to see what they will achieve together.
• HTC presented five new devises, among them HTC Scribe which allows the user to write with a pen directly on the screen.
• LG presented mobile phones and Pads that could show 3D without special glasses. This is a feature from their TV side.

So, what was missing? Or should I say who was missing? Apple.
As usual they are not participating in the Barcelona event. But the spirit of Apple does hoover the show. The rumors of new versions for Ipad and Iphone, what they will include keep flourishing.

But hey, who doesn’t love a mystery?

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility by Jason Andersson
1 Comment »

Sometimes marketing ideas go way to fast from idea to implementation.

Two partnering communication-suppliers in Sweden have together branded what a “Smart company” is, in terms of communication services:

A company is defined as smart that gives service to its customers when it suits them, has a mobile way of working and can share relevant internal systems with clients and partners. (TelekomIdag)

Then they have measured Swedish companies and organizations how well they are at “being smart”.

Sounds like a good idea, right. Well it depends on the reasons for the index. Both these companies want to position themselves as the key successful factors for those who want to be a smart company, and who doesn’t. But really what they are trying to do is what they always do (and should do) sell, sell, sell. They are not doing this to help or even to get any type of truth out; on the contrary, they will get organizations that are unsure of what they need to do, to invest in things their customers are not looking for.

Ok, let’s take their smart company definition one point at the time to find out what, if anything really is smart and what is absolutely necessary when doing business. In essence we want to see what in the definition will give a company or organization a cutting edge (or smartness) compared with the rest:

• Gives service to its customers

This is a key to ANY company or organization providing a product or service. First you give service to your existing customers. To win other customers, you can compete in any of the four P’s (Product, Place, Price and Promotion). More recently, three more P’s have been added to the marketing mix: People, Process and Physical Evidence. People focus on who uses the product or service, Process on how it reaches the customer and finally Physical Evidence is demonstrating other customers’ satisfaction, which is proof of customer service.

• When it suits them (the customer)

Have you tried to give service when the customer isn’t there? Not a good idea. Service happens when the rubber hits the road, so to speak. Service is live, attentive and can be done in a number of ways over a number of different media. But a company or organization should implement those channels that their customers ask for, or will ask for. For example, I don’t expect service if it will endanger my business; Say my bank wants to give me advice and uses an unsecured way of doing it, I would refuse such service. I don’t expect, or want, service if I am involved in something else; If my computer provider calls me when I am with a customer to help me sort out my network card which is not working, I am not too happy. Service is and always will be when it suits me, the customer, otherwise it is a nuisance.

• Has a mobile way of working

First of all; define mobile way of working! Is it that I can bring my laptop anywhere I want to? Is it that I have one number to my fixed phone and the same to my mobile? Is it that I can choose any of the above? Second, if my doctor is mobile when I come to the emergency room, I will not be too happy; I want him there, not mobile. Sorry for the bad example, but mobility is great, but not for everyone. It will, for sure, be for more and more people, but for everyone? Don’t think so. To measure if a company is smart based on a specific mode of accessing communication services is like covering your one eye and trying to measure the distance between two trees. Very tricky, if possible at all. And really is mobility not a cutting edge anymore? I think it is commodity, no matter how you slice it we expect to be able to take a number of office features with us, on the road, in our home office or while off site.

• Can share relevant internal systems.

This is also about definitions. What is a relevant internal system? Internet banking, e-government and other implementations are great. This is really about being smart. Doing more with less, or giving more information to the customer. Help customers to help themselves. Let partners know shipping status, get ordering details, or service case details. But is this is the hands of a communications supplier? Or is it really about publishing information, sharing and presenting it using web services, IVR system and other technologies?

A really good communication strategy starts with identifying who the customer is, how they wish to communicate, and then implementing a reactive and responsive solution that adapts and grows with the customer and organization.

Well, ok, a definition of a “smart company” is kind of good to get at least my juices running. But claiming that these four areas makes an organization smarter than others and then saying it “mirrors how good companies are in using information and communications technology” is not fair. And when they say they “hope together to be able to raise this average”, it becomes clear that their real purpose is to sell, sell, sell. And that is ok, I guess, but not smart marketing. The intent is to be objective but their arguments just became subjective and very biased.

Just my two cents anyway.

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Jason Andersson
No Comments »

On February 10, we’ll begin to find out how much the Verizon Wireless +iPhone4 combination impacts competitors’ market shares.  I completed a project a year ago that included conducting a primary survey on mobile service and device customer satisfaction, and brand preference.  Results showed an  overwhelming interest in the above – the most desirable service provider combined with the most desireable device. 

But a lot has happened between then and now.  Unlike many commentators, I think that in the near term, adoption of this combination probably will say more about Apple vs. Android and Microsoft than it will about Verizon Wireless vs. AT&T Mobility.  Here’s why:

1.       Most people and businesses would want to keep their current phone numbers.  Although wireless number portability exists (WNP), there have been no significant mass migrations to really stress test carrier systems (the FCC has specified that wireless porting should be completed within a 48-hours window).  In particular, business customers will need to think this through—if they switch, how will they deal with service unavailability windows in which they have no control over the start time?  And what about contingency plans in the event that carrier problems prolong this window? 

2.       Most wireless customers are on term contracts - consumers 1 or 2 years, most businesses-2 years (some 1 year).  So, without financial incentives, the market won’t move swiftly.  Verizon Wireless could accelerate migration by offering to rebate customers for the switching expenses they would incur, but I think this is highly unlikely on anything except a very significant enterprise deal. 

3.       Verizon Wireless’ advertised 3G footprint doesn’t always live up to customer expectations, particularly in areas with less dense populations.  Given the company’s strategic focus, I expect this to continue going forward.  This matters - right now, one of my F 500 clients is switching from Verizon Wireless back to its former provider due to 3G coverage issues. 

4.       Bottom line:  Assuming ATT does nothing to try to stem the tide, I think people will think about switching more than we’ll see them switch this year.

5.       But ATT is doing something.  It’s offering new data plans.  It’s also publicly said it’s speeding up both its HSPA+ and LTE deployments.  So much so that several sources tell me of some ATT budget cuts in areas not remotely related to wireless.  Since ATT hasn’t revised its Wall Street earnings forecasts, clearly that money is going somewhere else.

6.       Thus the impact of this highly desirable provider-device combination on wireless carrier migration, even after 1 year, may be less than Verizon Wireless desires and ATT fears.

But this year, the impact on device share could be a very significant story.  For 2011, I’d venture to say that 70%+ of the Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 activations will be from current Verizon Wireless customers.  How much will that eat into Android’s and Microsoft’s future growth?  We’ll literally know in a matter of months.

What does this mean to UC users?  If your company is considering using FMC functionality on devices that include the iPhone 4, it’s natural that you’d want to do this with one service provider.  But depending on your employees’ calling and use circumstances, some of the issues I discussed above could impact the speed at which you’ll really be able to migrate to one provider, or even the desirability of doing so.   Obviously you’ll need to do some homework to make an accurate assessment.  However, there’s one certain benefit:  having greater device/provider choice can be very helpful in your negotiations with mobile providers.  And you can take advantage of that benefit at your very next contract negotiation.   

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility by Lisa Pierce
No Comments »

Based on statements it made yesterday, the FCC’s Net Neutrality decision (FCC 10-201), leaves current and future U.S. UC customers and suppliers in no clearer or more certain circumstances than before.  Uncertainty often inhibits investment in innovation, which is the exact opposite of the FCC’s stated intentions.  Some examples:

1.       The FCC’s logic clearly relies on its authority to regulate telecommunications, and thus it implicitly re-classifies Broadband Access and Internet Services as Telecommunications Services.  Up to this time, both have been explicitly treated as Information Services, and thus largely exempt from either FCC or legislative oversight.  This decision is so divisive that two current FCC Commissioners believe the justification used by the three other FCC Commissioners is illegal.  Thus it’s a virtual certainty the decision will be challenged by Congress, which warned the FCC earlier to not attempt to exceed its rulemaking authority.  Several facilities-based providers, most notably, Verizon, are rumored to be evaluating lawsuits to overturn at least some of these rules.

2.       While not everything in the FCC’s decision is controversial, here are some highlights that effectively create greater uncertainty (or uneven-ness in the broadband playing field):

a.       The decision attempts to regulate both wired and wireless Broadband access.  As seen just last April in the Comcast vs. FCC decision, federal courts have already made it clear the FCC lacks this type of rulemaking authority over cable companies (this was established decades ago by an Act of Congress).  Thus by default, “wired” refers to access provided by telecom carriers.  Also, this is the first time the FCC is explicitly attempting to regulate wireless access as Broadband.  However, its language in yesterday’s press release is quite vague (as of this time, the decision itself is not available on the FCC’s website).  It’s also a complete reversal from the FCC’s preliminary findings in the Net Neutrality NPRM it published in June (see http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0617/FCC-10-114A1.pdf

b.      Assures unfettered access to content.  Whether fixed or mobile, the FCC’s decision seeks to assure unimpeded access to “lawful” content so that Broadband providers can’t favor their own services or applications over those supplied by third parties.  This makes it unclear if and how 3G/4G providers will be able to continue with their existing relationships with select applications providers. 

c.       Seeks greater authority over a broad swath of IP networks.  In this decision, the FCC intends to extend its rulemaking and enforcement authority not only to Internet services and Broadband, but to any and all current/future substitute technologies that may be used in their place.  The FCC expressed concern about the investments Internet facilities-based providers may make in other technologies at the expense of their investments in the Internet.  It’s not clear if the FCC plans to follow up this decision with explicit guidelines on what constitutes acceptable future investments in IP networks—something to which all facilities-based providers would strenuously object.   While they were not explicitly named, this kind of dark cloud could inhibit the pace of carrier’s investments building out enterprise WANs built on MPLS and Ethernet services.  That could in turn a chilling effect on the adoption of many types of business applications, including the use of enterprise-grade WANs to support UC and related collboration technologies on a multi-site basis.

d.      Prohibits third parties like content providers from paying facilities-based providers to treat their applications on a favorable basis.  This is an outgrowth of spats like the recent one between Comcast and Level 3 on the delivery of Netflix content (see http://www.level3.com/index.cfm?pageID=491&PR=965).  If it holds, this decision could affect all over-the-top providers.  If the full decision fails to prohibit consumers or other customers (like businesses) from paying for the preferential treatment of certain applications (via techniques like CoS or DPI), then it will in effect have approved it.

As mentioned, the above findings represent my preliminary conclusions.  Once the full FCC decision is available on its website (typically in a matter of a few days), I’ll be able to provide UC Strategies readers with a more thorough analysis.

Tags: Collaboration, Mobility, Unified Communications, Video by Lisa Pierce
1 Comment »

While many eyes were on unified communications and collaboration this month, and speech technologies are certainly part of that, speech held its own for announcements in November too. Just taking a look at Nuance alone, there were quite a few. This didn’t even include the tasty, but so far false rumor that Apple was acquiring Nuance. This came about when Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, misspoke at an event, mentioning that Apple had acquired Nuance. It created quite a stir and a bump in Nuance’s stock price.

Despite the “rumor”, Nuance was quite busy in November, boasting several announcements across the company’s product lines. Nuance added another mobile device to the customer list by announcing that Nuance’s natural language voice technology is behind the new Genius Button and Hands-Free mode innovations on T-Mobiles’ myTouch 4G phone, which will allow consumers to speak, receive and send text messages completely by voice, by pressing a button and saying “Turn Hands-Free Mode on,”. This turns on Bluetooth capabilities, providing complete hands free use. While this wasn’t a big announcement, I’m all for it.

Nuance’s Healthcare division announced an outsourced transcription service - Nuance Transcription Services, which expands their clinical transcription services portfolio. This draws upon resources they received through the company’s acquisition of Outsourcing Solutions, Inc. and Encompass Medical Transcription Inc. They also introduced PowerScribe 360, which is an advanced radiology reporting and communications platform that combines the best capabilities of PowerScribe and RadWare into a unified solution. Nuance claims that 1/3 of all radiologists in the country now use PowerScribe. Also in the radiology area, Nuance announced collaboration with a privately held company - Montage Healthcare Solutions, that does search and analytics on radiology reports, to improve the ability to search radiology reports. Hmmm. Any time I see privately-held company and Nuance in the same paragraph I smell mergers and acquisitions, but I digress.

Nuance had several mobile applications announcements too. These included saying that Nuance technology is behind the voice-to-text on the new Ask for iPhone application from Ask.com, and that Nuance Dragonmobile technology is behind the new price check for Amazon application for the IPhone as well.

Another announcement that I really liked, although it was also not earth shattering, was Nuance’s announcement that they will be working with WGBH’s National Center for Accessible Media, to improve the quality of close captioned media. A US Department of Education-funded project, this effort seeks to improve the close-captioning of real-time news programming for the hearing impaired. Nuances’ contribution will be using the company’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking technology as the basis for developing customized language processing, data analysis, and benchmarking tools for the project. As a long time proponent for using speech technologies to improve accessibility, I’m all for this one too.

Although not a formal announcement, last week I also spoke with Nuance on how the company is extending Nuance on Demand to include extensions for CTI and ACD, essentially giving Nuance the capabilities of hosting entire contact centers rather than just self-service. This solution includes speech self-service, intelligent routing, screen pops, and fully-featured ACD capabilities. Nuance has paid particular attention to extending their goal of improving the caller experience by providing capabilities such as having the self-service “agent” continue interacting with the caller while the caller is in queue, and populating the agent screen with call context when the caller requests to be transferred to an agent.

Nuance has seen 98% growth in its hosted on-demand customer service applications in the past year, with about half of new customers moving over to Nuance from other hosted service providers. Nuance’s hosted offering is now processing over 2 billion minutes annually, with just self service alone. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that Nuance is now making the foray into hosting the entire contact center. It makes sense from the standpoint that they have had pretty significant success in hosting, and the fact that growth in virtual contact centers in general is growing exponentially across the industry.

This is a good thing for existing Nuance customers who choose to move the contact center to Nuance because they will get better end-to-end analytics capabilities if they choose to do so. It is also a good solution for adding on remote offices or remote agents, and lends itself well to a hybrid approach as well, as Nuance can overlay a CTI adapter onto a Nortel or Avaya contact center and get the intelligence they need to route calls to a Nuance contact center agent or one of the others, for example. It will be interesting to see how competing vendors react to this, however.

We are at a cherry picking time in the contact center industry right now. It is a decade past when we churned a lot of the installed base because of the millennium change, there is a huge installed base of systems out there that are getting to end of life, and hosted solutions are now a common choice. Not to mention the churn that is being caused by consolidation, such as we have seen with Avaya and Nortel. So, all companies that have moved into the virtual contact center space, including Nuance, are in a good spot to capitalize on the chance to win contact centers over to their offerings. One caveat, Nuance isn’t going into the “hosted contact center” wherein they provide agents, just agent management applications.

As an additional proof point of the move to the cloud, Five9, an on-demand contact center software provider, also announced the availability of a speech self-service offering in the cloud in November too. Within Release 8 of their Virtual Contact Center product line, Five9 customers can now add IVR as an integrated or standalone product.

Finally, I had originally set out to do one November roundup of speech announcements, but Nuance has just been too busy this month to bury them in a bigger blog. I’ll blog about the others shortly.

Tags: Collaboration, Contact Center, Mobile UC, Mobility, Speech Technologies by Nancy Jamison
1 Comment »

While enterprises and service providers have been moving quickly to support their end users and customers with the latest and greatest UC technologies, supporting multimodal mobile devices (smart-phones) will be one of their biggest challenges. Why? Because they will be constantly evolving as devices and with their mobile OSs, must be mobile application-independent, and be highly personalized in a variety of ways.

Since mobile products and technologies are still evolving and everyone is still learning to deal with “multimodal mobility” vs. traditional desktop communications and traditional cell phones, there will be ongoing competition for different devices and associated services.

Wirefly Mobile Backup Will Help End Users Keep Up With Smartphone Evolution

Because one of the big problems with mobile devices is that they can be easily lost or stolen, end users will always need a way to easily replace what they already have. Coupled with the possibility that they may simply want to move to a new device or service, the first free, automatic,  cloud-based mobile data backup service available to consumers from developer Spare Backup and Wirefly fills both bills.

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility, Unified Communications by Art Rosenberg
No Comments »

By now you must have read some of the very positive analyst comments on Interactive Intelligence’s (ININ) Partner and Analyst conference in San Antonio, TX on October 11-13th.  What was most impressive to attendees is how well-structured ININ’s contact center software applications were to cover both traditional call center and future UC business application needs. What caught my attention, however, was the successful push that ININ was making in the hosted services market, they refer to as CaaS or Communications as a Service.

The idea is now new, but ININ has taken the lead in making CaaS offerings more flexible in order to overcome the concerns of organizations that don’t know enough (yet) about whether they want to end up with a hosted service or take full responsibility for support with their internal IT staff. Given that customer interactions applications are moving into the new UC domain of “multimodal communications,” there is little experience available to make such a decision yet. So, the obvious approach is to “try before buy” with minimum cost and maximum flexibility. What ININ has cleverly come up with is the option to start with a hosted service but switch to other support alternatives based on actual experience with the specific UC applications involved.

Not surprisingly, ININ reports tremendous interest in their CaaS offering for contact center applications, particularly since they have gone out of their way to allow business organizations to retain local control over their telephony communications activities (CaaS with Local Control).

In terms of other contact center UC application functions, those are still evolving slowly but steadily, but will benefit from ININ’s “”all in one” platform philosophy for cost efficient integrations. Their approach is being enthusiastically supported by their business partners who are focused on helping customize different organizational needs for both inbound and outbound multimodal customer UC interactions.  I am waiting to see them support the needs of consumers who will be using mobile smartphones!

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility, Unified Communications by Art Rosenberg
1 Comment »

Because UC also encompasses human contacts with automated applications, the human user, regardless of how contact was initiated, with one major exception, must dictate the mode of interaction. While great progress has been made in speech recognition as a means of data input and user interface control, it has not made completely full voice conversation practical as a user interface for self-service applications. As recognized in a new book, “Advances In Speech Recognition: Mobile Environment, Call Centers and Clinics,” speech is efficient for user input, but not practical for large amounts of content output which can most efficiently be reviewed on a screen as text or graphics. That is why I see traditional telephone self service applications (IVR) being replaced with what I call “Interactive Multimodal Response” (IMR) applications on all forms of multimodal mobile endpoint devices (smart-phones, iPads, tablets, etc.)

One of the key roles that mobility and UC flexibility can play is in supporting automated business processes that can initiate contacts with individual end users for time-sensitive notifications. However, I see such applications doing more than sending notification information to a user. Instead, the applications will be able to initiate an interactive multimodal exchange with the recipient, but with the choice of input and output media resting with the human recipient.

Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) is going to heavily exploit such “multimodal notifications” because they can proactively initiate a self-service interaction without waiting for the recipient to take the initiative. Until now, telephony-based IVR was seen as the best way to handle self-services from consumers who, until lately, were not expected to have access to a real-time communication device other than a phone. With UC and mobile, multimodal devices, the future and value of business self-services will expand significantly from legacy online desktops and telephone IVR applications

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information, Unified Communications Information by Art Rosenberg
1 Comment »

Companies recognize that the capabilities and availability of underlying network infrastructure are essential ingredients to sucessfully deploying and using Unified Communications transparently across multiple types of users and locations.  Thus the ongoing Net Neutrality debate merits close scrutiny.  Yesterday, Verizon and Google announced a nine-point proposal on Net Neutrality (see  http://www.scribd.com/doc/35599242/Verizon-Google-Legislative-Framework-Proposal ).  I recently provided a high-level analysis of the FCC’s Net Neutrality NPRM (see http://www.ucstrategies.com/detail.aspx?id=5345&terms=Lisa+Pierce)

On a 0-1.0 probability scale in which 1.0 is “certainty” and 0 is “won’t happen even if Hades froze over”, here is my assessment on the probability that the FCC will ultimately agree with each of the points in the Verizon-Google proposal: 

1.      First three points- Transparency, Consumer Protection and Non-discrimination on broadband Internet elements:  Probability of FCC agreement: 1.0

2.      Network management: First the FCC must wrap its head around the reality that just adding more bandwidth to the Internet won’t make it more reliable, usable, etc.  Once the FCC concurs that proactive network management is essential to maintaining a reliable, relatively secure, functioning internet, then the probability of FCC agreement: .8

3.      Additional online services—These already exist-they are supported via MPLS and Ethernet services, and can interface to Broadband Access. But by definition, these are not public internet services, and so aren’t part of the FCC’s net neutrality NPRM.   Also, some providers have implemented QoS functionality on their public Internet networks.  The underlying rub seems to be that FCC assumes that broadband internet customers will *only* be able to access content via the public internet.  Despite the fact that this is not the case today and won’t be the case tomorrow, the probability of FCC agreement: .6

4.      Wireless broadband:  Of the nine points, this is by far the most important.  Verizon and Google.  They want to exempt wireless data from all other principles here except the Transparency Principle (above).  Many customers use mobile devices as their primary method of interacting with Internet-based content.  Some rely on mobility exclusively, and this trend is expected to grow with time.  It’s likely a wireline-only FCC ruling on Net Neutrality would face numerous challenges in the courts and in Congress.  True, there have been and will be substantial investments in wireless broadband access (e.g., 3G investments, current and future 4G/LTE investments).  But very suubstantial investments have also been made and will continue to be made in landline Broadband access.  If accepted, the proposal might lead to a world where new multimodal applications appear first on LTE, and sometime later (if at all) on landline.  Such an outcome would not make the FCC happy-because the Commission would see this as a creating new kind of information divide.  Thus, as envisioned by Verizon and Google, probability of FCC agreement: .1

5.      Case by case enforcement:  As described by Verizon and Google, the FCC would be enforcing policy in areas where it does not have rulemaking authority.  That’s a huge can of worms – one that will make for endless litigation and Congressional oversight.  Probability of FCC agreement: .1

6.      Regulatory authority: stipulated over Internet Access, not applications or content.  Those who want more federal oversight of problematic Internet content will point out that this stance is inconsistent with other types of FCC authority (such as over radio and broadcast TV) and so even if all the FCC Commissioners agreed, it could face numerous court challenges.  Probability of FCC agreement: .3

7.        Broadband Access for Americans:  Proposes using Universal Services Funds to spur broadband deployment in underserved areas and by low income populations, and continues to treat Internet services as Interstate.  The FCC is in favor of all of this, so probability of FCC agreement: .9.  But let’s point out that (1) From a regulatory perspective, the internet is currently treated as an interstate service, (2) billions of dollars have already been allocated to deploy Broadband to under-served markets.  Since this has recently begun, we don’t know how much these funds will solve the availability problem and make it un-necessary to redirect additional resources, and (3) the Verizon-Google proposal isn’t clear if any of the USF would directly or indirectly subsidize wireless broadband access, a technology that Verizon and Google clearly want very much to remain unregulated.  

The Bottom Line:  Although it has attracted a lot of attention and debate, this proposal will have very little if any substantive impact.  At best, the FCC will extend an olive branch to Verizon and Google on those points where all parties share similar perspectives.  But it is precisely the controversial topics, like the wireless exclusion proposal, that regulators believe are essential to resolve in order to achieve their stated objectives.   Undoubtedly the Net Neutrality debate will generate more fireworks, but don’t be surprised if this topic takes a hiatus at least until after Election Day.  

Tags: Mobility, Unified Communications Information by Lisa Pierce
No Comments »