New technologies offer gateways to 2010 growth
Features
By: Andrew Nicholson, Product Manager, Aculab for VON, November 2009
What are the defining technologies that will exert the most powerful effect on the telecom industry in 2010?
Two of the likely innovations are high definition (HD) voice and video connectivity. Offering applications in both the consumer and enterprise space, HD voice substantially improves the quality of voice communications by delivering rich, full-bodied audio never before available. Video communications also offer great promise to businesses and individuals, particularly to mobile users who don’t mind paying a premium for on-demand video services.
But the growth of previous IP-based solutions, like collaboration, unified communications, and VoIP, has been predicated on the ability to integrate those technologies with legacy infrastructure – such as TDM and SS7 networks. That means a number of challenges must be addressed if HD voice and video are to reach their potential.
HD Voice challenges
HD voice provides an audio experience that is not only pleasing to the listener but also enables new applications and more effective communication. But when it’s packetized and transported across networks, odd things can happen to the signal along the way. The inconsistency that is inherent in network infrastructure can seriously impair the quality of HD voice.
Take a common network connection between a caller and an HD conference service or another HD endpoint. Even if both endpoints have the highest quality and high-fidelity equipment, the actual signal delivered to the ear is only as good as the weakest link in the network connection. If the service provider can guarantee that the full bandwidth required is available end-to-end, and the connection is never routed through a traditional TDM switch, then it’s possible to hear the benefits of HD voice.
But if the network connection transits any IP/TDM gateway, at the PBX or someplace in the PSTN, a conversion will take place to a traditional narrowband codec, and the wider spectral content of the HD signal will be lost. Since much of the telephony network in the world is still run on TDM switches, this is the most likely scenario. But just as it happened with early VoIP deployments, network operators will have the opportunity to leverage advanced gateways that support wideband codecs.
When VoIP first emerged in the 90s, the technology to encode voice into IP packets was pretty simple; however, until the network infrastructure was able to provide quality of service and manage voice traffic differently from data, the results were unpredictable at best. Things worked well in a LAN or intranet where excess bandwidth masked some of the issues, but until IP-to-TDM gateways matured, sending VoIP across the public network was a gamble. Due largely to the implementation of IP gateways able to bridge disparate networks – some based on media-processing boards from Aculab -- VoIP has become a mainstream technology.
The other challenge is that HD voice has many “flavors” – i.e., the choice of codec to carry HD voice is almost as large as the number of players in the market, and new ones are being developed constantly. The G.722 series of wideband codecs, developed by the ITU, is a common starting point, but there are others as well. Skype’s SILK codec has been adopted by some Web-based service providers, while the iSAC codec from GIPS has also gained traction. And the ITU continues to standardize other codecs such as G.711.1 and G.718/719 for a variety of wideband applications. If the IP gateways in the network core do not support the particular HD codec used in the endpoint, the systems defaults to narrowband mode. For HD voice to go mainstream, the new generation of network devices must support the widest possible range of HD voice codecs.
Video challenges
Video has been around for years, but only recently is it starting to build momentum, thanks mainly to the popularity of YouTube. But while video at the desktop is quite entertaining, that’s not where the industry is headed.
Many competitive service providers the ability to deliver video content to the mobile device offering the greatest upside. Likely applications for mobile video include video clips and streaming, video messaging, video conferencing, interactive voice and video response (IVVR), and video-enabled call centers.
But transporting resource-hungry video to a power-stingy mobile device with minimal bandwidth and limited processing power presents particular challenges. Plus, a multitude of hardware and software standards, codec choices, frame rates, and screen sizes all contribute to the complications in providing high-quality IP video to users.
For one thing, mobile devices need a camera and screen on the same side in order to facilitate video conference calling. Streaming and real-time content providers need to deliver content to screens and devices at frame rates from 5fps to 30fps. And the network must support transcoding of video content on-the-fly in order to match the bandwidth and display characteristics of the recipient’s mobile device.
Promising transcoding solutions have started to appear, including offerings from Dilithium Networks and Radisys.
Video services
As for new mobile devices capable of video conferencing, manufacturers such as Nokia(NOK), HTC, and LG(1577.TWO) have already introduced high-end phones with dual cameras. These will remain high-end options, at least for the next year, but could in time be as prevalent as handsets with single cameras today.
As was the case with VoIP, and is the case with HD voice, the ability of network operators to address all of these challenges will be the tipping point for video to become a high-margin, mission-critical business application that customers will pay for. While the enabling gateways, codecs, transcoders, and endpoints are beginning to surface, the challenge of bridging different networks that have varying capacities and capabilities will remain – at least in the near-term.
For video and HD voice to succeed, service providers must recognize the fact that IP-based solutions are bound by the ability to traverse technologically disparate networks. Investing in enabling technologies will not only pave the way for greater HD voice and video adoption, but will continue to pay off as more advanced applications enter the market.
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