VON, Stockholm, May 2006

VON Europe Spring 2006, Session 362 : It's all about Apps, Stockholm 18 May 2006, chaired by Christine Perey, PEREY Research & Consulting
One debate topic at the VON Sessions was the IMS (the bad) versus the Web (the good) . We were tasked to take the neutral application view on this. The pannel took 4 point of views :

Impacts on service providers
On-line service providers and ASPs are better placed than the network providers because services are at the edge, economics to manage service launches with few subscribers and no regulations. But the service provider mission can evolve : they can monetize the knowledge gained from access to existing user base, market bundles of mobile data and services with highest cost efficiency and open their networks to business partners. The Open vs. Walled Gardens debate is about trade-offs but all open markets ultimately win.

Open service development infrastructure
Web 2.0 and SOA technologies supported by application servers at the edge are proven. On the other hand the MNOs closed-garden have protected subscriber authentication and are resulting from 15 years of re-regulations on licensed spectrum. In that context IMS can be implemented as an in-between infrastructure that keeps some of closed subscriber management benefits while offering standard-based open IP interface to services that span multiple networks. For this APIs to IMS networks and devices should be made available to web developers, beyond SIP.

Applications from convergence
What are the services, after 10 years of VoIP? Is it only about migrating old voice/text services to cheaper IP infrastructures (IP Centrex/PBX, SMS/IM). The focus on IMS/CSCF and IMS/MRF/GW is a narrow view on the past. Rather we should we enable really new services, like mobile video, content sharing , group communications etc..

Identity management
With new services, the focus is moving from media transport to added-value with identity management including presence, group/buddy lists, location, authentication. How to integrate overlapping systems and privacy. In that context IMS/HSS becomes a useful component.. Who should be the ID service provider ? .


I contributed the following slides to the debate. Taking the view of 3G video services I found that we could use both Web service creation and some IMS/MRF streaming infrastructures.



The VON experience is also to get to meet up with old friends such as Christer Granberg and Dominique Sjögren formerly at Pipebeach and now with HP. However I failed to sense the excitement of some previous VON Europe events.

CTIA, Las Vegas, April 2006

 Conversa video service
One featured demo was Conversa, a mobile video conversation system created by HP Labs (Susie Wee, similing is the lab director) and HP OpenCall software. The system is designed for use with 3G mobile videophone handsets or with a client for Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones. It’s a hybrid of a Web 2.0 web site and 3G streaming mobile video service where users  can browse conversations and record responses from any phone or PC. The web site has typical RSS video podcast support, video playback in a web browser, and an open HTTP API to support developers.
Conversations with the HP Labs team are time well spent : April Slayden Mitchell, Alex Vorbau (blog), John Apostolopoulos is enriching. Check their paper from ACM's Computer Human Interaction (CHI) proceedings: Consuming video on mobile devices
 OpenCall Media Platform
HP introduced a version of OCMP for IMS, keeping the Java and VXML APIs. It can really bridge Web 2.0 open service creation approaches with IMS service control infrastructure. (Left : my colleagues and Wade Haynes and Joe Crispo are looking at an ATCA implementation of OCMP MRF).
 H.264 adoption
The NVIDIA® GoForce graphics processing units that can power mobile phones such as Motorola C, MOTORAZR V, Samsung, Sony Ericsson W900 etc,… They are supporting H.264/MPEG-4 QVGA encoding/decoding at 30 fps. A competitor is TI's OMAP chip driving two display (one for mobile TV and one for telephony control). [TI's estimate is 20% penetration of videophones]. OpenCall SoftDSP performs similar video processing on Intel and AMD processors.
 
IP video phones
There were a number of demos featuring fixed/mobile video calls. Here the devices from Samsung. Huawei has the Viewpoint 8x IP video phones. IP Unity was demonstrating their Mereon Video mail using IP video phones. The target are business customers but I don't know what the market reaction will be to these devices.

Millia-MipTV, Cannes, 3-7 April 2006

 
We shared a booth at Milia's first Mobile Village in Cannes with the team : Peter Vesterbacka (HP Bazaar junior conultant), Tomi Hietavuo (DJ) and Joonatan Henriksson.
 
We demonstrated personalized 3G video portals, our ideas for TV participation and organized a photo-blogging service with Shrek using those nice little bluetooth-enabled HP printers. We wanted to illustrate how personal communications can integrate user-generated or artist's video and pictures. And how this can interact with traditional TV formats.
Mobile TV is there
Our neighbours in the village focused on mobile content distribution. Nokia were presenting their DVB-H mobile video broadcasting receivers, Alcatel was showing it's platform for 3G Mobile TV, Ericsson offered consulting and products in the same field and finally Qualcom was anouncing MediaFlo. Within a few square meters, Milia visitors could explore all the emerging mobile video technologies from interactive unicasting to broadcasting on mobile. Milia/MipTV is a trade show for content, with over 12'000 professionals busy acquiring or selling next year's TV program [3 billion $ business during the show reported by Reed midem]. My estimate is that 1'000 of them found a few minutes in their busy schedule to look at what may change their business, impacting both audiences and advertising revenues.