Aculab, a leading provider of enabling technology for the communications market

What the market needs

For service providers looking to increase revenues, video applications represent an important area for communications platform development.

Video and multimedia service solutions can be broken down into five main areas:

• Video clips and streaming
• Video messaging
  
• Video conferencing
  
• Real-time conversational video telephony
  
• Video call centres

A video clips/streaming service could offer breaking news stories, soccer goals or sports highlights, or 'one-to-many' applications such as music video streaming or adult or mature content streaming. A well known example of a video streaming service is YouTube Mobile.

A video messaging service would permit the subscriber to leave a short one or two minute video mail using their mobile phone or PC running a video phone application. This might be a birthday greeting, or a 'see what I see' clip from a holiday.

Video conferencing is a well known application usually restricted to specially equipped conferencing rooms. However, video conferencing over mobile phones is a relatively simple application that can be rolled out by service providers to expand the use of video conferencing and open up new revenue streams.

Conversational video telephony was one of the first service examples envisaged for video telephony. However, it has historically suffered from technical issues such as choppy calls and long call set up times. Recent advances such as 3G-324M MONA are set to remove these obstacles and will bring about a wider adoption.

Adding video functionality to a call or contact centre would improve the service in multiple ways:

• A video call could make use of IVVR functionality to enable quicker menu choice for the caller
  
• A caller could see the contact centre representative
  
• A caller would be able to view video clips to assist with their issue (for example, how to perform a multi-step operation or how to install a part on an appliance)
  
• A caller could relay an issue to the call centre using video so that the representative could see what the problem being faced was, negating the need for lengthy voice based explanations

For all the above application areas, video capability would enhance an existing voice communication platform to give benefits to both service provider and end user. For the service provider, video capability would open up new revenue streams, reduce OPEX and provide competitive advantages. To the end user the benefits are a richer communications experience.

Many of the above application areas do not need the video to be two-way to get the benefit. A recent development in the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) framework is Video Share. This enables a party engaged in a voice call to add a one-way video stream to the conversation. As the video part is packet based it is not constrained to a 64kbit/s bitrate, and does not require the receiving device to be 3G-324M compatible. The service will therefore be able to offer high quality video images to a wide range of handsets and end-user terminals.

As an example, the benefits for video enabling a call centre are presented below.

Aculab video technology

Aculab's Prosody media processing products have been used in contact centre solutions by many partner companies, and large numbers of customers use Aculab's products at the core of their IVR systems. The features of the Prosody family that make it ideally suited to these applications have now been enhanced with the addition of video APIs, developed in a similar style to existing voice APIs so that developers should have no problem in adding video functionality to their systems.

High channel counts

For a contact centre with an IVR, video support creates a video enabled contact centre with IVVR. The Prosody family can support high channel counts, thus enabling the creation of large contact centre systems. The same philosophy has been applied to the video support we have added - by utilising external resources to perform any necessary video conversions, high channel counts are achievable on video as well as voice calls.

Flexibility to provide small to very large systems

Two facets of the Prosody family functionality provide the necessary scalability - Prosody X and Prosody S use the same API, and can be built into large systems combining multiple Prosody X boards or Prosody S inatallations controlled from one application. For a small system, a single host running Prosody S and the end application would be sufficient; the largest system might comprise multiple Prosody X or S units. We are able therefore to offer a video enabled solution to satisfy the  needs of users requiring systems ranging from the smallest all the way up to very large, distributed architecture systems.

Technical flexibility

Video support has many flavours. Aculab's approach, as can be seen from our already extensive voice codec support, is to provide options for our customers that support the most used technologies. Video can be in the form of IP/RTP streams, or use a 3GPP defined 3G-324M approach with the video and audio carried in 64kbit/s TDM timeslots.

The Aculab video APIs currently provide play/record functionality for IP/RTP video streams as we have found that this meets the needs of the majority of applications. Techniques such as Video Share enable video to be added to calls to/from 3G mobile phones as this uses IP/RTP video streaming.

Recording can be to two of the most common formats - 3GPP (.3gp) or QuickTime (.mov) file formats, and we are able to support play of files in both H.263 and H.264 codec formats.

Target markets

• IVR and IVVR vendors
• Gateway vendors
• Video conferencing system vendors
• Call centre technology suppliers

Video enabled call centre example

Benefits to call centre operator

Enhanced up-sell opportunities - IVVR system with part of screen dedicated to special offers or promotions (improved customer experience over a regular IVR system where the customer is forced to listen to the special offers)

New branding and advertising opportunities - targeted adverts to callers on hold, enhanced branding through use of avatars in video menus.

Improved agent effectiveness - use of in and outbound video clips to aid problem resolution or product choice.

Benefits to end user

Interactive voice and video response (IVVR) solutions offer a visual, web-like user interface for menu choices, leading to faster navigation and improved overall call centre experience.

Quicker call resolution through more effective technical and installation support.

For further Prosody family product information visit the DSP-based processing or host media processing pages.

Visit our partners section for a list of partners offering contact centre platforms based on Aculab's technology.

Visit the case studies page to see how some of our customers have used Aculab products to develop contact centre solutions.

The Aculab Prosody portfolio of media processing boards and software supports all the video technologies required for successful IP video deployments: