Net Neutrality - getting the right compromise: Focus on innovation!

I'm currently finishing a research report on new and "non-neutral" mobile broadband business models. When I started writing it, I hadn't realise that it would coincide with such a huge period of industry turmoil, with the EU Connected Continent legislation going through the Parliament, and the US FCC reworking its rejected Net Neutrality rules and suggesting controversial alternatives. Add in various other national legislative initiatives, the recent Internet Governance shindig in Brazil, and it's clear that a lot is going on, and it's the right time to be looking afresh at this area.

*New Disruptive Analysis report on Non-Neutral Mobile Broadband Models*

A core part of the debate is around so-called "specialised services", particularly involving either prioritised "fast lanes", or perhaps just 3rd-party payments for data traffic instead of the end-user. (I'm also looking at other flavours of non-neutrality such as zero-rating and application-based charging, but they're discussions for another day).

While I've got my own personal preferences and beliefs, I'm wary of confirmation bias and I'm looking at the broadband/Internet industry through the lens of "what compromises are right for the telecoms industry, consumers, the content/developer community & the broader economy/society". 
 In other words, there needs to be:

• Clear benefits for end-users (consumers & businesses) in terms of speed & reliability of both Internet connections and other non-Internet broadband use-cases (IPTV, VPNs etc). Users must be able to pick and choose any applications they want, and in the case of public Internet-based services they should continue to meet the same (variable, but generally good) performance levels that are common today. It is also important that users are offered ever-improving networks (however measured, but typically peak/average throughput) and a rich stream of new and innovative content, apps and services.
• Continued innovation in apps and investment in content by various media, web and software players. This is covered below - but a cornerstone here is that developers/content companies should not need to have any interaction or commercial relationship with access providers at the user-end. They might choose to do so, but as a general case they should have reasonable expectation that the Internet "just works" end-to-end for most uses, as it does today, without extra friction. This is what has made the Internet so successful - you don't need ISPs' permission or engagement to build a "killer app" or website; there are no gatekeepers, although you might want catalysts or accelerators.
• Enough incentive for telecom operators to continue to build and run broadband networks, and offer Internet access as a (often the) primary application that exploits them. This applies to both fixed and mobile operators. Operators may also choose to offer apps, services and content, either standalone or as bundles, together with connectivity. These may involve innovation by telcos directly, or may be reliant on others' innovation. There's a further issue around telephony, which needs continuity and reliability, despite its inevitable & imminent decline in importance and value. There is an open question about levels of consolidation and infrastructure competition.
• Continued economic and societal benefits from the Internet and (where appropriate) other non-Internet services. This includes fostering national software and content innovators, maintaining critical infrastructure/services, some forms of universal access, and fostering fair competition, enablement of innovative "big projects" (learning, energy, transport), improving citizen engagement & democracy, and earning appropriate levels of tax.

Clearly trying to "optimise" across all those separate constituencies is a tall order. But the astute will have recognised that the word "innovation" appears in all four buckets.

(There are also other constituencies such as technology vendors, industry analysts/consultants, and lawyers/lobbyists who also have their own self-serving needs, but I'm excluding those here)
 
The interesting thing is that all sides in the current Net Neutrality furore claim that  their position is essential for innovation. Internet advocates point to the "generativity" of the last couple of decades in creating new services and applications, and that "permissionless innovation" by developers must be maintained. 

Telcos believe that allowing managed "specialised services" on networks will encourage additional innovation, especially for demanding applications.

The counter-arguments tend to focus on potential competitive threats, eg large media companies hogging the expensive "fast lane" and squeezing out lesser-resourced rivals and startups, or telcos feather-bedding their in-house services at the expense of Internet-based alternatives.

There is also a sense that some telcos just want to extract rents/taxes from existing services, by acting as gatekeepers and enforcing monopolies on end-user connections. (Disruptive Analysis does not buy the argument that new pricing models are innovative in and of themselves. Interesting and possibly profitable yes, innovative in the sense of "creating new stuff", no).

It seems clear that the debate between "Neutrality = Innovation" and "Non-Neutrality = Innovation" is not going to be easily argued and won conclusively.

I've been reading a couple of interesting books recently. One is Antifragile, about things which gain from disorder and randomness. It has lots of applications - and misapplications - across telecoms, the Internet and networks in general. I've been arguing with Martin Geddes on Twitter about this a lot recently. The other is The Why Axis, which looks at doing real-world experiments to determine cause-and-effect, incentives to change behaviour and so on. It's more about individuals, but some of the ideas apply to businesses as well.

I'm not certain precisely how we can test the question of "does neutrality generate more innovation than non-neutrality?", but it strikes me that any form of way to test that would be incredibly valuable. 

(And yes, we'd have a separate argument about the metrics and measurement, but to a first qualitative approximation I'd say "how much cool new stuff emerges, and how fast?" isn't a  bad start).

I think I've worked out a way to "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear", on the thorny issue of "specialised services", aka "fast lanes".

The potential innovation upside of such managed connections is tempered by the downside of anti-competitive behavior, or unfair rent-seeking.

While I'm a huge believer in market economics, a lot of areas around broadband either lack competition (access networks), or move too slowly at regulatory/legal levels to prevent inordinate damage. The usual suggestion of "let competition sort it out, with easier switching for customers if dissatisfied" is too slow. (It also doesn't help protect the developer/app constituency). We all know how fast "web speed" is - and how fast value is created by innovation, or lost by delay. Most startups - or established Internet companies - have neither the time nor money for protracted and arcane fights against telcos. 

In Europe, the original draft laws did not go far enough to define or constrain specialised services, and politicians saw it as a broad get-out clause for telcos, with too many grey areas. They voted for an amendment which tried to tighten the definition:


“Specialised service” means an electronic communications service optimised for specific content, applications or services, or a combination thereof, provided over logically distinct capacity, relying on strict admission control, offering functionality requiring enhanced quality from end to end, and that is not marketed or usable as a substitute for internet access service.

I actually think that's a bit clunky, and may have some unintentional side-effects. I'm especially unclear about exactly why the term "admission control" is so important here. Hopefully it will get explained and clarified in a subsequent draft.

The US is currently going through the same loop, with the FCC coming out with hugely controversial proposals about similarly allowing "specialised services" to run alongside a supposedly "neutral Internet". Unsurprisingly, this has induced howls of rage from the pro-neutrality lobby, and it is unclear how far it will get through the rest of the US regulatory process, vs. other ideas about redefining Internet access as a "common carrier" platform.

But I have an idea.

Let's kill two birds with one stone.

Regulators could allow specialised services, but only for ones which are not also available on the "open Internet". In other words, specialised services should actually be "special", and not just chunks of the existing Internet sold at a higher price.

This would have a number of effects:

• It would foster true innovation by companies or individuals that have eschewed the Internet because of needs for QoS guarantees - for example, home healthcare or maybe cloud-gaming
• It would reduce the fear that big media/app companies could use a "fast lane" to squeeze out less-resourced rivals and startups suffering from the "dirt road" second tier
• It would reduce the ability of telcos to subtly "force" content companies to pay for access connections that end-users have already paid for
• It would give a clear set of services for telcos to retail (or develop in-house) without worrying that some of that activity would "leak" over to the public Internet as it gets faster
• It allows things to be regulated separately if needed
• It could come from establishing players launching entirely new services, if they wanted (eg 4K video from Netflix, or a home cleaning & security robot service from Google) as long as they were not also available via robot.google.com
• It gives telcos an incentive to both sell specialised services (for new revenue) and continue investing in "vanilla" Internet provision
• It will encourage telcos to invest R&D $$ into their own specialised services
• It doesn't risk "breaking the Internet model" through stifling the normal process of developer innovation - it just adds another channel for creative thought & product release. 
• It focuses back on telco core strengths of availability & uptime, as it can be dimensioned differently
• It could prove in a measurable fashion whether QoS capabilities do meet a real need, and provide valuable input for policymakers
• It allows vendors to sell lots of new policy kit and charging solutions

Yes, I know this isn't going to be "quite that easy", but it strikes me as a reasonable compromise that gets around a lot of the objections on both sides. It gives a clear dividing line between the Internet and the Ain'ternet (You heard that one here first). It could help create a broad range of new broadband propositions that are risky or insecure to do over the public Internet (telemedicine, smart homes & the like).

And it means that if we do get proof that QoS-managed/specialised-services connections generate innovation and "cool new stuff", then future law-making will be much more evidence-based, rather than just hot air from lobbyists.

Thoughts welcome...

*New Disruptive Analysis report on Non-Neutral Mobile Broadband Models*

Telecoms regulators should encourage multiple access, not just competitive access

Much of the regulatory debate around telecoms competition (fixed or mobile) involves consideration of investment in networks. 

Broadly, this centres on two or three dimensions:

• Investment in adding capacity, coverage & capability to existing networks, eg fibre deployment, or upgrading to 4G mobile networks
• Ensuring adequate facilities-based competition between (retail) access networks, eg cable vs. telco
• And also where retail competition is difficult, enabling wholesale competition, such as by unbundling of local loops, or allowing MVNOs

The general idea is that consumers should have access to alternative suppliers for connectivity, especially broadband. Some regulators also try to ensure that switching/churn is made quick and easy.

At the same time, a reverse trend is occurring with network consolidation (mobile/mobile, mobile/fixed & fixed/fixed) as a result of declining profitability. We also see an ongoing trend towards network-sharing in order to reduce costs, although that is still only patchily-accepted.

I am increasingly of the opinion that regulators need to shift stance a bit.

Rather than focusing on competition at a national level and assessing the ability for consumers to switch access providers, I think an alternative approach is warranted.

Regulators should look to make it easier for users to access *multiple* networks dynamically, rather than necessarily switch from one primary provider to another. New devices and applications now make it much easier for users to exploit several routes to obtain data or content, either switching on short time-scales, or even connecting to multiple sources simultaneously.

Most obviously, smartphones are typically able to connect to both a cellular network, and the user's choice of WiFi in a given venue. Less obviously & commonly, they can also be "tethered" together, to use another phone's cellular connection by proxy. In the fixed broadband world, we sometimes see mobile broadband used as a backup - or in the business space, perhaps multiple redundant fibre connections into the same building.

Where customers are able to choose and switch in (near) realtime  between different connectivity options, they (or apps working on their behalf) can minimise costs, maximise up-time, arbitrage around "neutrality" issues, and perhaps bond together multiple connections for highest speeds.

In particular, users are then not locked into a single business model - such as monthly ongoing "subscription", but can benefit from alternatives such as one-off payments, sponsored or "free" access, amenity or utility provision, bundling with other goods or services and so on.

The key here is to ensure that customers have access to multiple independent networks, and not just some form of centrally-controlled "HetNet" with converged billing and policy (and business model) functions.

There are a number of further ways that "multiple access" can be fostered:

• Encouragement of dual-SIM (& dual-standby) mobile devices
• Fostering of alternative / overlay infrastructure in both fixed and wireless broadband, such as new generations of LEO/MEO broadband satellites, or more "far-out" options such as Internet-based drones and balloons
• Allowing pole-mounted fibre to be deployed more easily
• Reducing any onerous limitations on public/amenity WiFi (such as user registration)
• Controversially, perhaps limiting the ability of cross-ownership or forced-offload between cellular & WiFi providers (ie ensuring that users have "WiFi neutrality" and are able to select a network of their choice)
• Removing limits or blocking of tethering or other device-to-device connectivity and access-sharing
• Looking at mechanisms to encourage households to obtain and manage two fixed-broadband connections, eg cable+fibre. This could involve promotion of "dual-homing" broadband gateways or set-top boxes
• Examination of ways to encourage new entrants into domains such as white-space wireless, mesh networks and so forth
• Consideration that many users will have several devices - and perhaps several different access providers - that can substitute for each other, in many cases.
• Encouraging the adoption of third-party network monitoring software and reporting - allowing users to make informed decisions about their network choices (speed, neutrality, cost etc) at any location and time

The point here is that there does not need to be "monolithic" competition - ie nationwide networks. Neither does it need "seamlessness". Users and (increasingly) devices and apps are capable of switching networks very quickly, if perhaps not always fast enough or easily-enough for cases like inbound phone calls. That is a "nice-to-have" which can be added later, if and only if it doesn't impact users' ability to choose and arbitrage across multiple providers' networks.

To a first approximation and for an early regulatory goal, it is sufficient for there to be multiple independent ways for most users to access a basic set of Internet services such as email, social networks, e-commerce, messaging and voice communications, at the majority of locations and majority of the time. This might involve using a phone instead of a PC, or a tablet instead of a TV. But people are quite flexible in achieving their real goals, such as "being entertained for 30 minutes" or "arranging to meet a friend", and cheaper devices and better software/apps allow tasks to be substituted easily.

*New Disruptive Analysis report on Non-Neutral Mobile Broadband Models*

On the other hand, it is unreasonable to expect full "access redundancy" to 4K video-streams ubiquitously.

If regulators focus on "temporary switching" power of end-users, they reduce the potential for abusive market practices, irrespective of Net Neutrality position. If a customer's mobile operator tries to block Skype, but it is available instead via a neighbour's shared-access WiFi with minimal hassle, that both mitigates the harm to the user, and incentivises the original cellular operator to adopt more reasonable network policies. If an ISP tries to extort unreasonable paid-peering or transit fees from a CDN or content provider, then perhaps a 3rd-party Internet drone or satellite connection can step in, and in the process act to "keep honest" the interconnection fees.

This is a theme that I will come back to in various other guises. But the bottom line is that operators should consider the ability for users to exploit *multiple* independent network connections and business models on a dynamic basis, not just choose occasionally between primary providers when contracts are up for renewal.

5G standardisation needs to be multi-stakeholder, not just a cosy telco+vendor process

I'm seeing a huge amount of interest in the early definition of 5G networks, which are expected to start appearing sometime around 2020 - even though there is thus far no formal definition. I attended a Huawei-sponsored event about 5G in Munich a couple of months ago, which is just one of many similar conferences and gatherings involving most of the traditional industry. And there certainly seems to be a long list of technologies - and potential requirements - vying for inclusion and consideration.

However, in my view 5G should take a different path to standardisation to 4G/LTE. That process definitely had some highlights - especially the bringing-together of the formerly separate CDMA and GSM/UMTS worlds. LTE has also taken off rapidly in some countries (especially the US, Japan and South Korea), paralleling and being catalysed by the rise of smartphones.

On the other hand, LTE has some downsides. In terms of business model and user-behaviour, it is still largely "like 3G use, but more so". It's faster, cheaper (per-MB) and has lower latency. But it's also often patchy in coverage, has far too many separate frequency bands, and of course is sub-optimal for telephony, with CSFB's compromises and VoLTE's huge delays and cost/complexity, occurring right at the same time as "peak telephony". The LTE speedboat has had to drag the ugly anchor-weight of IMS along with it, as the 3GPP standards have meshed them so tightly. (Or to use my 2009 metaphor, the dead parrot of IMS has been nailed to the LTE perch).

LTE also sits somewhat uneasily with the growth of WiFi almost everywhere. Ignore the HetNet hype for a moment - most WiFi is, and will continue to be, totally separate from the mobile network. WiFi is mostly either private (part of a home or office LAN enviroment), controlled by fixed/cable carriers, or provided as an amenity (rather than a service) by venue owners, event organisers, software developers and others.

There is a reason for this - WiFi is not constrained to just a single business/user-interaction model, ie a "subscription". It does not need a SIM card. It can be subscribed-to with an ongoing business relationship, or it can be transient, free, sponsored, venue-based, time-based, anonymous, tethered or assorted other approaches. This stands in contrast to 3G/4G, which for all its lobbyist whining about Net Neutrality, still comes as a Henry Ford-like "any business model you like, as long as it's a subscription".

I've never had a conference organiser (or a cafe) give me a code for "free LTE" while on-site.

This is partly because WiFi's technical standards (defined by IEEE & WiFi Alliance) do not include elements that pre-define its usage model. It does not need a SIM (subscriber ID module - the hint is in the name). There are multiple authentication models, and can have "users" rather than subscribers, with access not requiring many of the characteristics expected in the cellular world. As such, it is a "multi-stakeholder" technology - it involves network operators (fixed & mobile), end-users, enterprises, device vendors, developers, municipalities, venue owners, tenants, OS suppliers, aggregators, advertisers and many other interested parties. WiFi also does not mandate a specific service or control infrastructure - while IMS can theoretically be used, it in almost all cases is not.

As a result, unlicenced wireless data has a hugely diverse range of use-cases and manifestations, which has driven immense amounts of innovation, consumer benefit, application consumption and, ultimately, economic and social gain.

We should be thinking the same way for 5G network architecture. We need (we=governments, users, regulators, vendors, investors) to make sure that it too is "multi-stakeholder". Unlike 4G/LTE, we have an opportunity now for many other groups to get involved in defining "requirements" for 5G, and especially, making sure that whatever technical standards emerge do not constrain either business models, nor application/user interactions. Clearly, if it is expected to operate in licenced spectrum, it will need adequate mechanisms for management (especially for interference and probably aspects of performance/quality), but it needs to be technology-neutral end to end. In particular, it needs to be core-neutral and not assume a particular architecture.

Interestingly, we're already seeing discussions to put LTE into unlicenced bands - but at the moment, just with the same structures and architectures as "normal" cellular.

In order to get to those endpoints, the discussion needs to involve many more parties than just the cosy vendor/MNO process seen in 3G and 4G. The upfront discussions defining the technology need to involve a similar - indeed, broader - range of parties to WiFi.

While clearly Vodafone, Verizon, Ericsson & Huawei will need to be heavily involved in the 5G technology definition, so do Ford, Boeing, IBM, Comcast, Google, General Electric, Hilton, Apple, GlaxoSmithkline, Sony, Disney, ABB, WPP, Shell, Westfield, Starbucks, NATO and the Greater London Authority. There also need to be marketeers, behavioural psychologists and other social scientists involved, who can help steer the direction towards what customers actually want - rather than just what (old, mostly male) engineers think we should have.

Governments and regulators need to get involved immediately to ensure that 5G standards definition is not inherently anti-competitive. If we believe in the Internet of Things, eGovernment, Cloud, wearables and digital inclusion, we need to ensure that 5G is not just "4G on steroids". With the coming of virtualisation, we also need to make 5G much more easily "hackable", especially if it's used in unlicenced spectrum. Bits of the radio technology should have developer kits, or even be open-sourced if possible. As long as there is adequate protection against interference, 5G should allow experimentation. We need to be certain that there is not a cartel-like grip on IPR, that funnels 5G into being (to all intents and purposes) merely an overlay/upgrade for 3G and 4G networks. The idea of wholesale - at multiple levels - needs to be ingrained upfront as well.

It should be remembered that the telecom industry is not the only source of capex or managed-services opex. It is in ALU & Ericsson & Huawei's interests to develop versions of 5G that they can sell direct to governments, Facebook, Exxon and electricity companies, as well as traditional network operators. We already see LTE starting to appear for public safety or industrial uses - the future architecture of 5G needs to enable that approach to be expanded massively, especially as the telecom industry consolidates inevitably in coming years.

This probably means that bodies like 3GPP and ETSI are not the right places to start. It is questionable if the new 5G-PPP organisation is, either. It is not obvious to me that historically non-cellular companies (eg Toyota, or medical device vendors, or train operators) will easily be able to fit into the clubby telecom-standards world processes and strictures. This is already seen in the attempts by the mobile industry to embrace/subsume WiFi, where the other stakeholders are effectively excluded from many of the technical discussions. (To Huawei's credit, the 5G Munich event included BMW and a number of other non-traditional participants, although none obviously from the web world).

In a nutshell, as we go towards 2020 and 5G, and as mobile technology becomes more pervasive and important, it is critical that we make sure, upfront, that other voices are heard, and that we don't find the standards process just steam-rollering its way to perpetuating the past.

Regulators and governments should inspect the underlying assumptions - for example whether 5G is always going to be a "service" or whether it can also be "owned", or provided as a utility or amenity.

There should be nothing in the technology to preclude this Elements like SIM cards & IMS cores can still remain - but should be entirely optional. The radio technology needs to be decoupled from transmission, from the core, from the service layer, and from software - ideally with open APIs throughout. Equally, there should be no assumption that 5G is to be used just for Internet access - it should be neutral to "back end" network infrastructure and service domain as well.

5G should be open and exploitable by satellite, drone, balloon and device-to-device innovators, as well as traditional base-station infrastructure providers.

In brief, telecoms is becoming too important to just leave it up to the telcos and their vendors. Government needs to exert a heavier hand to make sure 5G standards are not just stitch-ups, excluding newcomers that can prove to be true sources of innovation and value. They need to ensure that tempting investments and lobbying prowess from the incumbent cellular world do not skew the playing field. And other parties, from consumer electronics to property to vehicle manufacture  to app developers to defence, need to get involved NOW, and ensure that 5G pre-research includes them, and reflects their needs upfront.

Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Market Status & Forecast Update - March 2014

Disruptive Analysis has been covering WebRTC since June 2011. And it is now just past the one-year point since it published the industry's first comprehensive analyst study and forecast covering the entire WebRTC value chain, in February 2013. Comprehensive update documents were issued to subscribers in June & October 2013. 

The third revision has now been published, covering recent trends in use-cases, standards evolution and WebRTC industry structure - as well as updated forecasts.

Over the last year, a few other analyst reports have been published on WebRTC. But none has really covered all aspects - enterprise, telecoms, consumer web beyond, with both qualitative and quantitative input. Much of what has emerged has stuck to the original 2011-2012 narrative about WebRTC as being just "like Skype but in the browser", rather than examine how WebRTC is changing into a much broader set of propositions. 

In the October 2013 update, Disruptive Analysis identified the trend towards non-browser WebRTC, especially on mobile devices. This has accelerated and is now an undeniable part of the landscape. Indeed, it is the core driver of recent headline service launches, including the consumer-oriented Tuenti and WeCam launches just this week, as well as the B2C customer-service interactions seen in Amazon's Mayday (which is part-WebRTC) and American Express' new iPad app enabled with video-chat.

These developments reflect both positives and negatives about WebRTC's evolution. At one level, there are issues with the lack of IE/Safari support, and continued debate over video codecs. Security and firewall/network middle-box traversal (in some instances) remain issues being addressed by IETF.

But what offsets these problems is the large and growing emphasis on "getting on with it anyway", in pre-standard form, and often using cloud platforms and 3rd-party SDKs to embed WebRTC into mobile apps, standalone PC applications and yes, even plug-ins. This is inevitably slowing down some use-cases, while speeding up others.

This translates into some modestly-lowered forecasts for PC support and adoption of WebRTC in 2014, but increased mobile support, especially from 2015. That is underpinned by both a growing array of "WebRTC cloud enablement" providers such as Tokbox, Twilio, Weemo, Temasys and about a dozen others, as well as a sudden surge in native or browser-based support of WebRTC on Android. 

By the end of this year, a large % of new Android devices (phone and tablets) will ship WebRTC-enabled "out of the box" - some in multiple different ways.

In terms of use-cases, the high-profile emergence of Amazon’s Mayday customer-support button on its new Kindle devices has catalysed huge interest in replicating it on other platforms. While only a small proportion of call-centre agents will transition to video initially (mostly for complex high-value customers/products), the economics and business processes will slowly adapt over time. Elsewhere in the enterprise space, WebRTC is cropping up in more UC and conferencing contexts, although as yet, we haven't seen a Mayday-comparable "cheerleader" which moves the market almost overnight, but that may come later this year.

In the consumer space, it seems that mobile/social adoption of WebRTC is finally starting to occur, but primarily on mobile rather than desktop. To a degree this reflects both browser-support issues, but also means that efforts are concentrated around the hot-as-the-sun communications app space. The Viber and Whatsapp acquisitions have just turned the focus on the area that WebRTC was heading towards anyway. Disruptive Analysis expects quite a lot more consumer-centric WebRTC apps to appear this year. It would be unsurprising if at least one "went viral". This could bring 10's or even 100's of millions of users overnight, dragging 1000's more developers in its wake trying to emulate it. There are also interesting desktop uses of WebRTC, including video-chat, but also extending towards defined verticals, such as healthcare and other forms of online consultation.

As predicted, telco use-cases of WebRTC have been slow to become real, especially where network-integration work with IMS is concerned. Although 3GPP is working on standardisation and a number of vendors have announced contracts, it seems likely that “live” commercial services will suffer protracted development, testing and internal-process cycles before launch. Most mobile operators have enough problems simply getting VoLTE to work in normal fashion, and so WebRTC enhancement or extension is not a priority. RCS is another "problem child".

Those telco-related WebRTC efforts which have  emerged into the light of day so far – a total of 4 by Disruptive Analysis’ count – are solidly in the “OTT” camp at present, including developer platforms. That said, there is clear interest from the service provider community, based on announcements, conference and web appearances of telco representatives, and Disruptive Analysis’ own report sales and consulting engagements into that sector. Other service providers from background such as VoIP and web-hosting are starting to appear as well.

As well as the established use-cases, other WebRTC domains such as the data-channel CDNs discussed recently, as well as Google's Chromecast dongle, are also starting to get traction. It seems likely that the overall market will continue to expand in scope as well as scale.

Highlights from the new forecasts:

• Devices supporting WebRTC at end-2014 reduced from 1.7bn to 1.6bn
• Devices supporting WebRTC at end-2016 increased from 4.2 to 4.7bn
• Mix of devices supporting WebRTC skewed towards mobile from PC, and from browser-based to non-browser
• Active WebRTC end-user base (individuals) at end-2016 increased from 1.7bn to 1.8bn

Additional detail and methodology/assumptions is available to the report's subscribers in the full document. 

Charts are available for companies wishing to use the data in presentations or marketing material, subject to sourcing to the Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Report. 

New customers buying the WebRTC study will receive both the original report and this March 2014 update, plus an hour's conference-call to discuss the current state of the market. 

Payments can be made either by card/Paypal online below, or by invoice/bank-transfer. Please inquire via information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com    

Additional ongoing subscription packages and/or briefings and workshops are also available. 

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Tuenti, Telefonica, Tokbox and zero-rated Mobile WebRTC?

This is a quick post on what appears to be a very interesting development I've stumbled upon today. It appears that a division of Telefonica has both a Telco-OTT WebRTC-powered VoIP service... and is also zero-rating it for use on its own MVNO-style sub-brand network service. 

*NEW* March 2014 Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Report & Forecast Update DETAILS HERE

This is from Tuenti, a Spanish social network that TF acquired some time ago. Although it has faced heavy competition & cannibalisation from Facebook, it still has around 6-10m active users, mostly in Spain.

I haven't had a chance to confirm this with the company yet, so various caveats apply, but... this blog post on Tuenti is very telling. It appears that Tuenti has had a Telco-OTT VoIP app for some time, but now "the VoIP service is compatible for the first time with the web (using the Chrome browser)". Or, according to the FAQ it works for calls to a PC which is using Chrome v23 & up, or Opera v20 & up. Which, coupled with the screenshots on the FAQ, screams "WebRTC" to me.

Edit: 10 minutes after publication, I got confirmation via Twitter from Tuenti that it does indeed use WebRTC

If I'm reading it right, it also appears to work as a messaging client for broadcast, buddy-list and one-to-one modes - ie like Twitter, Facebook Status or SMS.

The other wrinkle here is that Tuenti isn't just a Telco-OTT social network. It also operates as a prepaid SIM-only MVNO called Tuenti Movil in Spain, which had around 165k subscribers at the end of last year. More interesting still, it has a dataplan called Zerolimites, which zero-rates use of Tuenti's own app, if used on its own network - even if the user has no credit, for up to 30 days. Like GiffGaff in the UK, Tuenti appears to be a subsidiary MVNO, owned by a full MNO. I guess that potentially it puts it in a different place from a regulatory point of view as well as for branding purposes, depending on the "Chinese Walls". I haven't really seen anyone talk about how Net Neutrality might work for MVNOs, either.

There's multiple angles here, which I need to think about and ideally talk directly to those involved to confirm. I don't know, but I could easily imagine the new version of the Tuenti Android app is based on WebRTC APIs from Telefonica sister-company Tokbox. I'm not sure how the on-net traffic is zero-rated - perhaps by forcing it through a TURN server rather than doing it all P2P? There's no iPhone version, but I suspect that's because of Android's dominance in Spain, especially among the cash-strapped youth demographic aimed for by Tuenti.

Nevertheless, this has all my current main research focus themes in one:

• WebRTC
• Telco-OTT
• Mobile VoIP
• Neutrality & zero-rated mobile data models
• New formats for voice and messaging
• Telco service innovation & new business models

I want to get a chance to drill into this in more detail, but at first glance it seems to be one of the best examples of Telco-OTT innovation I've seen. (Honourable mention to Orange's new version of Libon too though, with its browser-based "guest access" mode).

Its timing is also excellent - I'm just about to publish my latest update to my WebRTC research report in the next day or so, complete with revised forecasts and analysis of issues like telco 
involvement, mobile WebRTC, and whether the slow arrival of Microsoft & Apple is a problem.

Tuenti's announcement also comes hard on the heels of yesterday's launch of another mobile WebRTC app called WeCam for social video-chat between Facebook, Google+ and Twitter users, which is openly disclosed as being powered by Tokbox. Together with various other factors and announcements I'm aware of, I am now increasingly convinced that mobile variants of WebRTC are going to hit an inflection point in 2014, not 2015 as I'd originally expected. More detail on the analysis is exclusively available for my subscribers.

Disruptive Analysis was the first analyst firm covering WebRTC, and maintains the most comprehensive & up-to-date analysis of any research house. If you're interested in buying the Disruptive Analysis WebRTC research study (including the new update) please click here or email information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com . Private workshops, webinars and consulting work also undertaken.

(I'm also working on a report on "Non-Neutral Mobile Internet Business Models" for publication in the next month or so - get in touch for a pre-publication discount).

AT&T's shrill anti-neutrality stance is dangerous

AT&T is rapidly becoming the Internet's Public Enemy #1.

Its sponsored data API programme is sufficiently misguided that it is fairly harmless. It has virtually no chance of achieving what it sets out to do, as I explained in this blog post last month. It also sets itself on the "right side" of Net Neutrality quite carefully, by avoiding any reference to possible differential treatment of traffic. It is just aimed at differential pricing - more specifically, zero-rating certain websites and maybe apps, by having the "upstream" provider pick up the tab.

*New Disruptive Analysis report on Non-Neutral Mobile Broadband Models*

What I've found unclear was whether this is the top of a slippery slope, or more of a sacrificial lamb to be offered up & killed in exchange for other regulatory favours.

The last few days, however, have suggested that the slope is indeed slippery, the wedge thickening, and the iceberg's tip being exposed beneath the surface.

In response to a blog post about Net Neutrality by Netflix's CEO (which is also rather bombastic, to be fair), AT&T's public policy team have decided to come back with guns blazing. Having had a bit of Twitter banter with their team, I've gone through the details in more depth below. But in a nutshell, AT&T has responded with a disproportionate and largely illogical diatribe that doesn't even bear scrutiny from the perspective of "rational anti-neutrality". It has then further compounded it with a frankly unbelievable filing suggesting that allowing paid discrimination/prioritisation is a way to further Internet competition, not restrict it - and lower subscribers' costs at the same time.

(I also had another round of Twitter banter with the head of ETNO, who seemed confused that I didn't have a conflict of interests he could use as the basis for ad-hominem attacks. He swiftly bowed out of discussion when it transpired he might actually have to argue properly and play the ball, not the man. Apparently I'm more influential than I thought, and I've been warned that "with your strange advices you will destroy the whole sector")

But back to AT&T. The main thrust of its argument is that non-Netflix users are effectively subsidising the Netflix users, by bearing the extra cost of peering and/or other elements of infrastructure. At least that's what I infer, after working through this bizarre tautology: "faster broadband networks like our Gigapower service... are requiring all service providers to drive more fiber into their networks". I read that as "our fast network means we have to deploy fiber", which is rather self-evident. Personally, I'd say that if you deploy fast networks, it shouldn't come as a surprise that bandwidth consumption rises as a result. And also, the effects have positive feedback - faster networks drive more/richer video use, which drives deployment of faster & higher-capacity networks. 

It was ever thus. Hence we've moved on from dial-up modems to fibre, while at the same time more people buy broadband, and keep paying for it. In common with many industries (computers, cars, travel) we are conditioned to pay the same or lower prices for continually-better products.

AT&T then goes on to say "we should accept that companies must build additional capacity to handle this traffic.  If Netflix was delivering, for example, 10 Terabytes of data in 2012 and increased demand causes them to deliver 20 Terabytes of data in 2013, they will have to build, or hire someone to build, the capacity necessary". My initial reaction was "...and your point is?". Netflix does build extra capacity - more servers, more data centres, bigger connections as its end of the Internet, more CDN capacity, more transit if needed. Same with all Internet companies. At the same time, end-users on AT&T's network are buying faster connections, and are subject to usage caps.

It should not really matter to AT&T whether a user's paid-for usage, below its cap of 250GB (or whatever) comes mostly from one set of servers, or a hundred different ones. If my tax contains an element to deal with road maintenance, the government doesn't complain that I always drive to the same place, rather than a random bunch of irregular destinations. 

AT&T should know that if it offers and sells more broadband capacity to its customers, then it's going to have to buy some more peering capacity and ports to support it. Surely, it's been selling broadband Internet access long enough now, to realise that dimensioning applies to both ends of its network.

Now to be fair, I think Netflix oversteps the mark as well. It basically describes paid-peering as a necessary evil (I paraphrase) which it would like to outlaw. Well, yes, I expect it would - but that's also part of the nature of the Internet, as described by the redoubtable @internetthought in this document by the OECD. What I think Netflix should have aimed for is not the elimination of paid peering, but something closer to regulatory or competitive requirements for it to be priced in a way that is fair, reasonable, transparent and non-discriminatory. What would be unreasonable would be for Netflix's paid peering to be significantly higher than anyone else's for the same capacity (Dropbox, Google, or other telcos like Verizon or Telefonica). 

Hastings makes some good points about asymmetry and free peering between telcos, as well as the risk of termination monopolies, especially in markets with limited retail broadband competition. (Yes, the US has ridiculously little competition, because its equivalent of local-loop unbundling & CLECs proved disfunctional, and there is no obligation on cable companies to offer wholesale propositions).

AT&T's most egregious argument is that non-Netflix users end up paying to subsidise non-Netflix users. It talks about the postage it paid to send movies in the past, when it shipped DVDs - the same sort of 19th-century "delivery" metaphor it tries to apply with sponsored data. But the metaphor is flawed. The postal service doesn't have an "access" model where every household subscribes. It doesn't have the same structure as the web, with data being requested, adaptive applications, mashups, bi-directional interactive flows and so on. That's the way the Internet works - there's millions of sites, and we all pay to be able to access all of them. Inevitably, there's a lot of stuff that any one person doesn't access, but others do. Drawing an analogy with the mail is ridiculous. It's a logical fallacy, a strawman.

In fact, AT&T commits a good proportion of the logical fallacies outlined on this great website in its pronouncements. (And yeah, I know I used the "slippery slope" myself).

Let's scale this down a bit. Both I & my customers are bearing costs for people accessing other analysts' websites and buying their research (boo, hiss). And much as I'd like Gartner or Forrester or Informa to stump up some extra cash to save my clients some money, I accept that's not a realistic - or fair - suggestion on my part. I benefit hugely from the open Internet - this blog, Twitter, Paypal, LinkedIn, Google and so on help me run my business - and it's in my interest to ensure that innovation continues.

By the same token, I'm sure AT&T would be unhappy if Verizon and T-Mobile started charging it a premium fee to "deliver" its own website content to their subscribers. Which, to be honest, is a much more likely outcome than them trying to get money from Internet companies with no cash. (Hey, John Legere, why not try it for a laugh?)

The bottom line is that the position is irrational. "If there’s a cost of delivering Mr. Hastings’s movies at the quality level he desires – and there is – then it should be borne by Netflix and recovered in the price of its service". AT&T: get this through your collective heads - the Internet does not "deliver" stuff. Data traffic is not physical, so stop using physical terminology. Your electricity connection doesn't "deliver" electrons. There is a cost to Netflix of connecting to the Internet. There is a cost to your subscribers of connecting to the Internet, which includes both last-mile access and your implicit commitment to effectively connect to all the other bits of the Internet. Even bits you don't like. That's what you're being paid for. Now yes, there may be specific instances where it's in two Internet peers mutual interest to pay reasonable fees to expedite something. But framing that discussion in terms of "free lunches" harks back to the hyperbolic SBC-era tripe of "you can't use our pipes for free".

And sure, Netflix is overstepping the mark too with its wishful thinking that all peering, everywhere is going to be done on a handshake. But instead of just arguing that Netflix should look at the structure of the Internet and accept  that sometimes (small & reasonable) payments will occur, you've tried to expand the argument onto spurious grounds of fairness to non-Netflix subscribers.

And as for your risible argument about "allowing individualized dealings between ISPs and edge providers", the idea that it will "empower startups" is so patently flawed I'm worried that you might actually believe it yourselves, rather than just having it as a lobbying position. Think about this for a moment. Are you expecting wholesale prices for such content providers to be higher than end-users' retail prices for capacity? Have you spoken to any startups willing to pay? Under what conditions? Seems unlikely to me. If I'm buying a few petabytes, I want them at much lower prices than end-customers buying gigabytes. Which suggests a less-than-zero sum game, if it does indeed "reduce the cost of broadband service for consumers" as you claim. Unless you're not intending to pass on infrastructure upgrade cost-savings, I can't see why you wouldn't lose money here. Plus, nobody will pay you money for priority when the network is uncongested unless you threaten to downgrade them, or engineer the network so it's always congested.

The bottom line of all of this is probably unpalatable. Neutrality is almost certainly the least-worst option for AT&T and other ISPs, unless you are allowed by regulators to charge unreasonable peering fees for monopolistic access to your customer base. Your attempts to undermine the existing competitive structures of the Internet with differential access-network performance are actively dangerous and insidious. By all means set up a parallel ecosystem and disrupt from adjacency, but experimenting with unproven business models on a "live" and critical platform for global innovation and productivity is unacceptable.

Not only that, but you are also ignoring risks to your own business that will result from playing "silly games". Your own website & OTT-style services will be first in line for mistreatment by your rivals. You are likely to provoke a mass switch to encryption, proxying and numerous new and exciting forms of arbitrage.You incentivise Netflix to offer "free TB of backup" or other apps, to create symmetrical or opposite flows, with you "delivering" data to it and creating further congestion/costs. You appear to be promoting a model that will replace (profitable) retail revenue with bulk wholesale deals. And above all, you are making your company appear as a threat to both the Internet and consumers' and businesses interests (and possible society as a whole). As a major US & global telecoms firm, you're too important to be allowed to commit euthanasia through non-neutrality. If you're being serious here, the FCC needs to treat you as if you're a danger to both yourself and others, and regulate accordingly.

Or alternatively, just tone down the rhetoric and start making constructive comments rather than issuing irrational polemics. (And sure, accuse me of hypocrisy if you can find anything particularly irrational here. I like to think I specialise in rational vitriol).

Edit: Oh, and Netflix / Mr Hastings - I think you need to retune this "strong neutrality" message. Paid peering has been around for longer than you, and if handled appropriately is both equitable and doesn't require the extra bureaucracy of oversight. Argue for "FRAND" peering, rather than wishfully thinking that it should all be free. 

*New Disruptive Analysis report on Non-Neutral Mobile Broadband Models*

Just how disruptive are WebRTC CDNs? Either to established players, or to mobile networks?

The bit of WebRTC which everyone outside the industry tends to overlook is the datachannel, partly because it doesn't fit with the popular - but wrong - view that that WebRTC is just "Skype in your browser". 

WebRTC is neither just about voice/video calls, nor just about browsers.

I've dealt with non-browser WebRTC several times before, and I'm drilling into it further for the current update to my research report (due for imminent publication) so I'm not focusing on that here. *NEW* March 2014 Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Report & Forecast Update DETAILS HERE

Instead, I've been thinking closely about some of the datachannel use-cases I've been seeing. Probably the most-common is file/screen-sharing, typically alongside various types of conferencing functionality. While there's a few interesting sub-categorisations (co-browsing, shared whiteboards etc) most are fairly intuitive replications or extensions of tools seen on other VoIP or video diallers and conferencing/UC tools.

But the other category that stands out is that of WebRTC-based CDNs (content delivery networks). I wrote about Yahoo's acquisition of PeerCDN in December, which provided an early heads-up about this model. It replaces part of the normal way websites and apps get content from servers owned by Akamai, Limelight etc (or a telco on-net CDN) with a peer-to-peer exchange of data directly between users.

Since then, a couple of things have happened. Firstly, two more WebRTC CDN players have emerged that I'm aware of - SwarmCDN and Viblast, as well as Peer5 and Streamroot, which I referenced in December. All are small companies, but, interestingly, already have a business model based on the amount of traffic diverted away from the other mainstream CDNs.

The other thing has been the much-ballyhooed deal between NetFlix and Comcast, which many people wrongly put down to non-neutral "sender pays" models or prioritisation, but which in fact nothing of the sort. It is a paid-peering deal that just clears a bottleneck between one of NetFlix's CDN providers, and Comcast's network, by means of NetFlix connecting directly at various IXP locations. (Sidenote: fantastic explanation here - ignore all the shrill-but-ignorant political  commentary, as this is nothing to do with actual, all-important and valid Neutrality).

Potentially the WebRTC approach suggests that content delivery costs (to the provider/broadcaster) could be driven down substantially. And the peering issue hightens the rationale for looking into ways to save costs sooner, and in more disruptive/innovative fashion. Linked to this are reports that some CDN players - notably Google - are having to pay to install their servers in some telcos' networks.

I'm starting to tip towards the newer P2P-CDN  approach as viable, initially at least for content forms that might be free/low-revenue bearing, rather than premium streaming. I'd expect that some broadcast organisations like the BBC will do their own research and maybe build in-house tools as well. And given its parentage, it certainly wouldn't surprise me if YouTube takes a good look as well, especially for its newer live-streaming and Hangouts-on-Air products. This domain also might be where to locate the worryingly-absent adult industry in WebRTC (worrying because normally it's at the front of the queue for cool new web technologies, yet bafflingly seems quite invisible in WebRTC thus far).

There's even a possibility that telcos/ISPs might benefit in some ways, from reduced load on their transit/peering, improved video performance experienced by customers, and maybe even hosting bits of WebRTC infrastructure like TURN servers on a localised basis. (China Mobile's take on the latter is here).

But the other side to all this is perhaps less-rosy. Like other, less-legitimate uses of P2P such as illegal file-sharing, this type of browser-CDN/app-CDN approach generates incremental upstream traffic. Data flows "up" from one user, "across" the network, and then "down" to the other user. Of course, it's also already been transmitted "down" to the first user to start all this off in the first place.

Generally, uplink capacity is much more constrained than downlink, especially on mobile networks. It also consumes lots of battery from mobile devices as sending is clearly more energy-intense than receiving. It also potentially increases costs to the end-user, assuming that the volumes are meaningful in the context of a data cap or quota. (And also assuming that the network actually measures upstream data transmission as well as downlink).

The question is what can/should/should not be done about this.

It's not obvious that policy management and in-network DPI can do much about browser/app-CDNs using WebRTC specifically. Apart from anything, it's encrypted - so unless telcos try to block all P2P WebRTC, it will be hard to discriminate CDN-type traffic from filesharing or screensharing or 100 other more "legitimate" things.The growing volume of enterprise WebRTC traffic, in advance of most consumer applications, suggests that such a blanket policy intervention would be badly-received and possibly illegal. 

 
(Sidenote: one of the things that initiated the original Net Neutrality legislation in the US was when Comcast's blocking of BitTorrent accidentally also impacted IBM Lotus Notes data as well. Business-affecting "collateral damage" is

It is possible that networks might try to associate a WebRTC CDN datachannel session with a particular website being viewed by the users, or perhaps a JavaScript CDN library being downloaded to a given browser. But again, there may well be multiple use-cases, such as "co-browsing" of a given website, even including multimedia content.

There are also options for networks to try to charge differentially for upstream and downstream traffic, but that is likely to lead to huge user confusion and dissatisfaction as it will also impact photo uploads, sending emails etc.

Overall, at the moment I suspect that neither the policy vendors, nor the broadband operations folk at most operators, have identified WebRTC-CDN as a possible traffic type or significant disruptor. It will be interesting to see what happens if and when it explodes - which could well happen overnight, for example if a common website starts using it suddenly. 

I also suspect that we will see WebRTC datachannel emerge for other unexpected P2P use-cases (eg distributed DropBox or similar - imagine being able to have encrypted online backups spread across your friends' PCs or phones). It also has the opportunity to play havoc with non-neutral broadband business models as people could take advantage of each others' data-plan policies, using another phone as a network proxy. Arbitrage city....

It would also not be surprising to me if we see Akamai, or other established CDNs, also looking into P2P approaches as a value-added service, or cost-mitigation approach for their customers. We could even see some of this working between network-resident web caches, rather than proprietary protocols. As a thought experiment, consider distributed SDN-based cacheing, with low-latency P2P datachannel connections, spread throughout a mobile network, and perhaps even co-located with base stations. 

Overall, I continue to believe that the datachannel is ultimately going to be the most disruptive part of WebRTC, which might change the way networks and applications are built and operated. The original versions of P2P had a huge impact, but more mostly illicit. This time around, P2P is going to go mainstream and be legitimised, courtesy of WebRTC. 

One takeout from this is that WebRTC datachannel p2P application developers should think about collecting performance statistics from Day 1. This will allow any subsequent attempts to throttle, deliberately degrade or limit connections to be more easily-spotted at a later date.

*NEW* March 2014 Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Report & Forecast Update DETAILS HERE

WebRTC, VoIP & mobile comms apps: bringing new power-dynamics to human interaction

When two people want to arrange a meeting, an interesting social negotiation occurs. Do you meet at one person's office, the other's, a convenient cafe, a hotel lobby, or at an event? Who initially suggests the time and the format? Who decides whether to invite other people to the meeting as well?

Numerous factors determine the choice. Is one person travelling? Does someone work from home rather than an office? Which has the busiest schedule and the least time to go out? Who requested the meeting?

.... and, perhaps the most important: who has the most power and influence in the interaction?

If you're a salesman, you'll probably go to your client's site.
If you're friends, you might meet over lunch, somewhere convenient.
If you're an employee, you'll go to your boss' office.

It's a blend of power-dynamics, pragmatism and context. Who's got the money, the influence, or the persuasive capabilities? Or the best coffee machine?

It's much the same, but more subtle, in personal relationships as well. Who goes to whose house? Who's the inviter vs. invitee? On a date, do you choose "neutral ground"? Whose choice of restaurant or bar? Again, it's a complex, fluid social interaction.

But in communications, we've never really had the same situation historically. You phone each other, perhaps arranging via email in advance. In a social context, we've also called or maybe SMS'd.

But this misses a lot of the richness (and unpredictability) of normal human social interaction. It gives the caller unnatural power over the callee - the ability to interrupt, for example. You always meet on "neutral ground" - that of the E164 number and the inter-operated phone network. But this doesn't recognise the normal power-dynamics or context. 

For example, I recently got a "pitch" call from an agency representing an industry association, for a briefing at MWC, which I was not attending. This unsolicited call, while I was roaming, had a withheld number. It interrupted me, and cost me money to answer an unwanted and irrelevant call, as I had no idea of its purpose. The much-vaunted universal "reachability" of the PSTN and mobile telephony was a liability, not an asset, in that instance.

In a B2B context, these issues occur regularly. I regularly get offered briefing calls by vendors. Often, they require me to use a US dial-in number, or install a browser plug-in for a web-conferencing call. That's fine if it's a paying client or prospect - they're the ones with the money and I want their business. But if it's just a random briefing requested by a PR/AR representative, then the power-dynamic shifts. I've started to insist on vendors contacting me on Skype (free, and I can use a headset & type my notes easily). I'm fed up with clunky plug-ins that need me to "check configuration 15 minutes before the call". I want an emailed PDF/PPT rather than a "driven" web-presentation so I can look ahead and see which slides I want to spend most time on, skipping waffly preamble if I'm time-constrained. Typically, I don't want to do video, as I am an unapologetic multi-tasker.

In other words, I'm starting to use the power-dynamics to my advantage and preference, albeit accommodating of others' needs "by negotiation" - for example, where corporate firewalls or policies prevent dialling UK numbers or using Skype. I don't want to be an arrogant "don't you know who I am?" boor, but at the same time I see no problem in using my preferences as a starting-point.

However, at the moment I don't have a "conferencing service" that I use regularly myself, nor an easy way to record calls, so normally I'll run with whatever someone else suggests.

In a personal context, the dynamic changes again. I use a mix of email, phone, Skype, WhatsApp, SMS/iMessage & Facebook to communicate with my friends. I know that some of them are Facebook refuseniks and so pick other channels. I know some friends always have phones on silent or buried in their bags. They in turn know that I'm often travelling, and generally dislike unexpected phone calls. Some of them tend to send lots of photos or like messaging stickers. Some are overseas and neither of us want to incur international charges. Sometimes I speak to someone who's pseudonymous, or where I don't want to use my normal phone number (eg B2C interactions where I don't want to get SMS spam).

Again, there's a social negotiation involved, with a side-order of pragmatism, tolerance or sometimes just pure showing-off. It involves persuasion - for example, various friends use Instagram, but I don't, yet. I might in future. Or I might not. Let's see - I might just try it if enough of them hassle me. It's human.

All this is going to get much more complicated in future. I don't think sociologists or anthropologists have really tackled this area yet, but it's going to be interesting to watch.

It's also something that technologists fail to grasp - especially those on standards bodies, for whom ubiquity, interoperability and "reachability" seem to be paramount. But that's not the way real people interact, in real life. We're driven by fashion, convenience, inertia, power, prejudice, taste, context and lifestyle.

We're also increasingly empowered to exercise our preferences. The simplicity of downloading and using a mobile app (be it "OTT" or "Telco-OTT" or embedded in the device) gives near-instantaneous choices. It also makes it much easier to push our choices upon other people.

WebRTC will take this a stage further again. Firstly, it makes it easier for people to find tools that suit them. Maybe I'd prefer video if the UI was better? Maybe I'll invite vendors wanting to brief me to my inbound presentation-management platform where I drive the slide-deck, or can flip through it offline in a separate window. Maybe I want to record the interaction, or tag it, or have someone else listen in? Maybe I want to give "guest access" to an enterprise system via a browser? Or trial something? Maybe I just want to "cut the number" and move to a URL as my primary communication identifier?

Of course, WebRTC is democratising, in that both sides of an interaction can exploit it. But my sense is that it, along with a continued rise in the use of mobile apps, a lot more of the normal social power-dynamics will be brought into day-to-day communications.

It will also be interesting to see how companies respond to this. I see no reason why I should give people my phone number, if I prefer something else. If I'm the customer, and I'm paying you money, then you should contact me on my terms. Web forms will start to evolve to having pull-down menus with a choice of preferences, rather than trying to mandate an E164 phone number. We already have direct-marketing preferences and opt-outs (email vs. SMS vs. post), and I suspect that will extend to voice, video and IM connectivity in future as well.

I'm sure we'll hear howls of complaint from the standards-mongers bemoaning the lack of ubiquity, and the risk of "walled gardens". But they're probably the same people who insist people come to their (walled) offices for a meeting.

If you disagree with this post, you're most welcome to have a chat about it. In my local cafe. Or via Skype, or in a WebRTC meeting-room of my choosing. Unless you're a favoured colleague/contact, or pay me a ton of money, in which case it's your call.

*NEW* March 2014 Disruptive Analysis WebRTC Report & Forecast Update DETAILS HERE

WhatsApp's hidden disruption - driving pseudo-"number portability"

I haven't done a full post about Facebook acquiring WhatsApp - there's been 100's from other places and mine would be lost in the noise. I expect that we'll hear a lot more in coming months anyway, given the CEO Jan Koum's announcement at MWC that it will be adding some form of voice communications in Q2'2014. (Interestingly, Facebook has been ramping up its own embedded VoIP feature in its Messenger app recently, as well).

Obviously I'm curious as to whether we'll see something WebRTC-like from either company as well. My suspicion is that it will be proprietary for now, but perhaps use certain aspects of WebRTC-like behaviour, perhaps in terms of the codecs or firewall/NAT-traversal. We will probably also see a PC-based browser endpoint for WhatsApp using WebRTC before the mobile app.

But that is separate to my thoughts for this post.

I'm wondering whether WhatsApp has another important role to play, which may also prove to be a game-changer for mobile. It is the largest of the so-called OTT players to link its IDs to your mobile phone number. (Viber and others do this too, while Skype and Facebook use a separate address-space).

I've actually been fairly scathing about the use of E164 (the international standard for both fixed and mobile phone numbers) by Internet and app players in the past, as it has tied users to a specific access provider, and not been easily extensible to PCs and tablets without SIM cards.

But WhatsApp is a bit more subtle. While the app keys your identity to your originally-entered phone number, you can also access your "account" from another device with a different phone number. This means you can use WhatsApp on a second phone, when you buy a local SIM card on arrival in a new country (I do this a lot), or just SIM-swap on your primary phone if it's unlocked.

What this means is that you can effectively do a basic form of mobile number portability "by the back door", even in countries where it's not mandated or has a complex/slow process for users to follow. You can get a new SIM or new phone contract - *with* a new number, but all your friends (if they use WhatsApp) don't need to change your contact details in their addressbook.

I still "appear" and can be contacted at +44 794xxxxxxx on WhatsApp, even when I'm in Singapore on +65 9xxxxx 

In effect, WhatsApp decouples your E164 phone number from your access provider and turns it into an OTT ID. It does mean that you need to keep your old number "live" eg sending one SMS per month on a prepay PAYG account, though - presumably it all gets a bit messy if the number expires and gets re-allocated to someone else, although that could probably be worked out in the cloud by looking at your social graph.

My sense is that this will drive continued growth and stickiness of WhatsApp in countries without MNP, or where it is cumbersome. It also means that every incidence of churn will likely further entrench its use.

One other comment about WhatsApp - it (or its various competitors like LINE) is indispensable for people with friends living abroad. International SMS pricing is still, for the most part, ludicrously high and often opaque to end-users. It took me 5 minutes to find that my UK operators charges me 30p (c$0.50) for sending texts to non-UK numbers. There isn't even a price listed on the website for international MMS/picture messages. Obviously, I message my friends in Singapore or the US or Germany via another chat application or email instead, as I'm sure most other people do as well.

It will be interesting to see how the still-minor telco RCS community handles this dilemma - it's pointless to discuss multi-operator interoperability, or RCS "hubs" or the IPX interconnect network, if it is driven by silly wholesale termination fees for messages. And yet I see little indication that there will be global, free RCS peering any time soon. And if users prefer WhatsApp to RCS some of the time (ie chatting to international friends) then they'll likely use it all of the time, especially if they churn as well.

Decoding Apple's VoIP, WebRTC, UC and VoLTE strategy

Like everyone else in the mobile industry, I'm curious about Apple's future direction and possible launches and strategic intentions. In particular, I'm interested in its involvement in voice, video and messaging-based communications. We've had both iMessage and FaceTime video-calling for a while... but what about voice? And what about APIs? WebRTC? And what about the impact on telcos' services? And will it get explicitly involved in enterprise comms & UC?  [Quick sidenote: I'm speaking at this hosted-UC vendor event in Frankfurt this week]

First, let's recap. There are (broadly) three sorts of voice communications:

a) Standalone "classic" phone calls, or something very functionally-close to primary telephony. This is basic "Person A calls Person B for X minutes" (or goes to voicemail). Telephony is the bulk of "voice" today, to the extent that people often wrongly use the two terms interchangeably. VoLTE fits here as well. Traditional business PBX systems fit here too, mostly.

b) Alternative forms of standalone voice communications that are not really "phone calls". Classically push-to-talk (walkie-talkie) service has been a good telco example, or conferencing - but there are also new types of realtime audio communication from the developer community. Encrypted secure calls with a dedicated app fit here. Some forms of enterprise mobile UC. One I heard about recently was "networked jamming" for band-members playing or singing in different places. Arguably Skype falls here rather than (a) as calls are often prefaced by an IM session and then "escalated" to voice - a very different user-interaction model than a normal interruptive phone call. Apple's Siri is also clearly a non-telephony voice application as well, albeit with one party as a robot. This domain is growing fairly fast.

c) Embedded voice communications, in which speech/audio gets embedded into a website or application. This is where the action - and future disruption - is mostly going to come from. Well-known examples include voice-chat inside multi-player games, IM/voice hybrids (although these have gone out of fashion somewhat), call-me buttons in websites and a broad array of API- and WebRTC-based applications that are emerging, often with video as well. This model is likely to extend to mobile voice-enhanced applications in the near future - imagine a taxi app with a "speak to the driver" button, rather than sending an SMS with a phone number. In the enterprise space, "proper" collaboration via UC, plus concepts like Hypervoice mostly fit here as well. 

A similar split of use-cases applies to both messaging and video, for example with SMS and Apple iMessage being in equivalent category a), Whatsapp & LINE in b), and Facebook messaging originally as c) but now moving towards b) a bit as well. For video, Skype, Tango and Apple FaceTime are in a), assorted telepresence and CCTV apps in b), and most of the WebRTC and Flash-based video in c), especially in browsers but increasingly in apps as well.

Notably, Apple has shown fairly little overt interest in category (c) to date - embedded communications to date. There are no easy iMessage or FaceTime Video APIs to incorporate them into apps, nor WebRTC support in Safari for websites. However, Apple has now finally joined the W3C's WebRTC working group, so perhaps we'll see some more concrete moves, as it realises that alternate 3rd-party approaches are putting the technology on iPhones, iPads & Macs anyway.

Google, by contrast, focuses more on b) and c) for messaging, voice and video (eg with Hangouts and its WebRTC evangelism), while assorted others can also be plotted on a (rough, first-pass, to-be-refined-comments-welcome) 3x3 chart:

(As an aside , this gives another clear view of where RCS goes wrong - trying to do too many things rather than focusing on actual user requirements. Also worth noting that category c embedded-comms platforms are usually those that have evolved from successful products first)


But back to voice comunications...

FaceTime Audio

Although it has gathered surprisingly little attention, Apple launched FaceTime Audio with iOS7 in September 2013. Despite the name being similar to the video product, it is specifically an audio-only voice calling product, that is very similar to a traditional phone call, with a similar UI/UX. It fits firmly into category a), although at present it is only available on LTE-enabled iPhones/iPads via cellular, or older devices like iPhone 4 via WiFi.

At the moment, FaceTime audio is almost but not quite seamless. It has a separate icon to "ordinary" phone calls, and a separate ringtone. There also seems to be a bit of a lag from swiping the lock screen to audio actually starting, when answering a call. But it's quite close - because it is integrated into the main contact and dialler UI, it's even possible to use it by mistake instead of a normal phone call. I've had a couple of calls via FaceTime audio and been impressed by the clarity, and its good functioning over (probably fairly uncongested) LTE in central London. But it's not quite ready for primetime yet, given the relatively low numbers of both 4G users so far, and the patchy nature of LTE coverage in much of the world.

In other words, it isn't quite as much an in-your-face slap to the telcos as iMessage was with SMS. It's also not usable with the sizeable base of iPhone 4/4S users unless they're on WiFi.As with iMessage, it only works between Apple users - otherwise it defaults to a normal circuit call (typically itself using CSFB, circuit-switched fallback). I suspect Apple is treating it as a large-scale beta at the moment, and monitoring both user behaviour and the app's performance in real-world conditions.

 
Apple & VoLTE

The interesting question arises later this year (or maybe later if my doomsday predictions prove accurate) when more operators, especially in the US, start rolling out VoLTE. I'd say there's at least a 70% chance that the iPhone 6 and iOS 8 won't support VoLTE at all, but that's possibly a function of pressure from AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile and a couple of others. One of the key variables will be whether real-world VoLTE works as well as FaceTime Audio, as well as more strategic issues that Apple needs to consider around IMS. Personally, I expect Apple to procrastinate as long as possible over VoLTE especially if it involves any compromises in terms of user experience or its own control of its users. 

What I do expect is that if FaceTime Audio gets favourable feedback over the next few months, it will be pushed higher in the stack towards becoming the default category-a telephony experience. That will be especially true for markets with decent LTE networks and sufficient iPhone user base to make FT-to-FT calls a decent probability. It may also be dependent on Apple indicating to users that it's consuming data allowance, and that niggling aspects of user experience like the lag in answering are fixed. As with VoLTE, it's also dependent on coverage, although Apple tends to make WiFi use easy on its devices.

One possible scenario is that iPhones become FaceTime Audio-primary, with either VoLTE or CSFB as a fallback, either if coverage is poor or for iOS-to-non-iOS customers. The interesting thing there is it implies a double fallback - there always needs to be CS telephony if there's no LTE coverage. (Although I suspect Apple will be more willing and able to use decent HSPA for VoIP than the operators).

One other interesting question is whether Apple might be able to improve/hack the radio aspects of all of this. The main problem with CSFB is the long call setup times - the network has to push the connection down from LTE to 2G/3G when the user makes a call, which takes some considerable time. Yet plausibly, Apple might be able to pre-empt this if the OS notices the user composing a phone number, or looking at the call register - perhaps only if there is no concurrent data traffic to disrupt. 

Similarly, if the user is already doing an intensive data task, maybe it might allow them to stop the phone shunting the connection down to 3G, just to receive an inbound call. It's wrong to imagine that all phone calls are more important than all data applications and should automatically have the right to override an ongoing 4G data session.

In other words, Apple might try to reinvent and enhance category-a primary telephony, using a combination of FaceTime, CSFB, VoLTE etc, in order to make the experience of calling better. It could develop FaceTime Audio with "interruption controls" for the user, rejig the awful voicemail experience (remember the original Visual Voicemail?) and try to tune the device-based user-experience of telephony, which is something that GSMA, OMA and others have woefully failed to attempt.

In many ways, iMessage is "like SMS, but better". I can imagine FaceTime Audio being positioned as "like voice calls, but better" in future too. (VoLTE is pretty much just PSTN-for-IP in terms of UI/UX, except where vendors try to blend it with video in a "communicator" product, or, laughably, couple it to RCS).

In this way, Apple could be the company that stems the tide of (some) users from clunky-old telephony to categories b & c, especially "nearby" substitutes like Skype.

To sum up, I expect Apple to monitor how FaceTime Audio works in practice, and then push it towards the primary telephony engine for iOS8 if it performs in way that's better for the end-user. CSFB will be the main fallback, although there is a slim chance of using VoLTE at the end of 2014. I could also possibly imagine an FT-A/IMS gateway and transcoder of some type. 


Non-telephony voice

How will Apple play directly in "category B", the non-telephony standalone voice comms category? I suspect that Siri will remain the centrepiece here, using it as a gateway to various forms of cloud-based comms interaction. We already see Siri as assistant; I wouldn't be surprised to see it evolve towards concierge- or interpreter-type roles.


WebRTC

As for WebRTC or other ways to category-c embedded voice and video, I think that Apple is probably acutely aware of its "unofficial" appearance on various of its devices already, despite no explicit support. WebRTC is being enabled either via browser plug-ins (yes, I know WebRTC isn't supposed to need them, but they're emerging anyway), or mobile SDKs from the likes of Tokbox, Twilio et al. I can't see these being blocked by Apple, despite Google's fingerprints all over WebRTC, because it is also supported by pretty much all telcos, all network vendors and most of the IT industry already. Moreover, early signs are that WebRTC will drive a lot of new user-satisfying applications, or enhancements of existing ones. I'd imagine Apple has take a close look at Amazon Mayday as a case-study, too.

I don't think that Apple is able to create its own WebRTC competitor (perhaps unlike Microsoft), because it doesn't have the starting-point assets in productivity software, full-scale conferencing, UC, telco infrastructure, contact centres and the like. It could (indeed arguably should) release FaceTime audio/video APIs for native iOS app developers. But given that Apple has itself been the main culprit driving the dagger into Flash, it must also realise that the browser/PC use of embedded comms will only go WebRTC's way in future, especially give its still-small share of PC installed base, and the fact that Safari doesn't reach onto Windows devices. (In fact, I'd be surprised if more than 50% of Mac users still treat Safari as their primary browser, rather than Chrome or Firefox).

Given its new membership of W3C WG, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if a future Apple iOS used WebRTC APIs or something very close to them, to give developers some way to embed FaceTime Audio and/or Video into apps. (It also wouldn't surprise me to see it acquire one of the cloud comms/SDK players too). There are some open questions over codecs (Apple likes H.264 for video, but has been silent about the "done deal" of Opus and G711 for audio) but I don't see that as a showstopper. I also suspect Apple is slightly worried what might happen when Google (inevitably in my view) puts WebRTC APIs right into Android, meaning that developers could not develop feature-equivalent iOS apps without relying on 3rd party APIs.

As always, deeper analysis of all trends in WebRTC is available to purchasers & subscribers of Disruptive Analysis' WebRTC strategy report & updates. Details here

(Sidenote here: I wonder if Rakuten's CEO or its investment bankers have heard of WebRTC. $900m seems like an awful lot to pay for Viber, given the likely future direction of mobile VoIP)


UC, Unified Communications

Before I started focusing more on mobile, I used to spend more time as an enterprise comms and networking analyst. WebRTC and my Future of Voice research has taken me back into that sphere more deeply in recent years.

Clearly, Apple has been making a more concerted effort in the enterprise recently, with a dedicated developer programme, and rather more overt marketing and positioning of iOS for business/government users. It is no doubt aware that many large companies are moving to iPhones, as well as iOS devices being likely a popular choice for BYOD programmes. iPads are also gaining strong adoption across the business landscape, for diverse use-cases.

However, as yet Apple has shied away from anything resembling a full UC strategy, instead leaving that space for its developers to exploit. But if FaceTime Audio and Video become more-used by employees, might that change? In particular, there may be issues around call-recording that emerge in some sectors like finance.

There is also a B2C angle here, especially where iPhone users interact with a business that also uses Apple devices - Microsoft appears to be grooming Skype & Lync as a way to enable direct connection from customer to business without a 1-800 or similar mechanism.

I don't really see Apple wanting to compete head-on with Cisco or Microsoft or Avaya or BroadSoft and peers in this area. Apart from anything else, the hardware margins aren't there. But I can certainly imagine an attempt to blend or gateway FaceTime (and maybe Siri for cloud voice like recording) with select partners. Unlikely to happen too quickly though - but I'm keeping a close eye.


Summary

Overall, I think the next 12 months will yield much greater clarity on Apple's stance on voice communications, as well as video or messaging. I wouldn't be surprised to see WebRTC (or almost-WebRTC) emerge as an important part of the overall experience, but I think FaceTime Audio is the bit which will suddenly be noticed by customers. VoLTE - if and when Apple implements it in late 2014 or more likely 2015 - will probably be pushed down to a supporting role, when neither FaceTime nor embedded communications is appropriate, similar to SMS's secondary role to iMessage and push notifications today. Siri might be pressed into broader service as a general gateway to "cloud voice" functions, while enterprise UC will still probably not be tackled directly by Apple on a standalone basis - although elements like conferencing might be carved off to compete more with Google.