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.

The big problem for VoLTE...

... is that there are at least 10 completely separate problems for VoLTE.

I've long said that VoLTE is a good idea in principle (ie having a standardised "plain vanilla" carrier telephony service for wireless IP networks). Over six years ago, I predicted this was necessary, but would face many practical difficulties, so getting started ASAP was important, even on old HSPA networks before LTE.

It took years before fixed VoIP worked well. It was invented around 1997, but it was a least 7 years later that it even started to be reliable on enterprise Gigabit Ethernet LANs, where the CIO was free to use whatever equipment and QoS tools were needed. The first carrier broadband VoIP was launched by Softbank Yahoo in Japan in 2002. Twelve years later, we're still at less than 30% replacement of global circuit PSTN today.

The idea that adding not just cellular and mobility, but a completely new radio, RAN & EPC architecture to the mix would make 4G VoIP any quicker to launch/deploy/adopt is wishful thinking of the highest order.

And so it goes.

I keep getting pitched by vendors with solutions to bits of the VoLTE puzzle I hadn't even realised existed. Yesterday was the turn of Stoke, talking about latency inside routers and gateways from packets having multiple hops between functional blades doing DPI, encryption, routing and so on. Apparently the impact on small packets (step forward, voice calls) is particularly bad. I'm not a router-architecture specialist, but it sounds plausible. Apparently it's also a problem that will get worse as NSA-inspired paranoia inspires telcos to put harder crypto in various bits of their IMS/voice networks in future. 2048bit-wrangling won't be quick or easy, especially if it needs to be done sequentially with all the other functions in the chassis.

I'm just adding that to the ever-growing list of serious obstacles that VoLTE faces in actually getting to widespread launch and adoption.

An incomplete list of VoLTE's problems, some technical & some non-technical, includes:

- LTE coverage & capacity being good enough (including indoors)
- LTE backhaul being good enough
- SR-VCC not working very well
- Handset availability
- Handset battery life
- Handset client UI
- The need for some sort of IMS platform & all that entails
- Roaming- 911 / 999 / 112 emergency calling
- Internal VoLTE network security (vs hacking, DDoS etc)
- Integration with billing & OSS & support systems
- Multiple layers of QoS mechanisms, from the radio to the core
- DIAMETER to handle all the signalling from all of the above bits & pieces
- Making all the "furniture" like ringtones & voicemail work OK
- API exposure platforms if needed
- Handoff back to 2G/3G circuit (& coverage, RF etc etc)
- The normal interop issues between vendors' & OEMs' gear
- How does a VoLTE MVNO work, exactly? (Anyone heard of one? No, me neither)

Oh, and if fixed-VoIP is anything to go by, we'll probably be dealing with a host of new & exciting acoustic failure modes that require a black-belt network & device media-engine ninja to diagnose.

Most of these issues are completely orthogonal to each other - and are being fixed by vendors who are probably mutually unaware of the existence of each other, or each other's problems. The likelihood of inter-dependence is probably high. All the fun new stuff coming down the 4G/5G pipeline like coordinated multi-point networks, small cell overlays, carrier aggregation & so forth probably won't help either.

Meanwhile, in most advanced markets there is now flat or declining demand for vanilla telephony (& revenues/profit associated with it), even in perfectly-working GSM guise. Except where previous high prices & elasticity means a bit of latent demand still lurking, usage minutes are going to fall in future. And no, so-called "HD" voice won't make a blind bit of difference - it's available for 3G already, if it mattered that much ,and it doesn't.

In other words, VoLTE is now very late, with new problems emerging all the time, which are likely to be ever more expensive to fix. It's serving a declining market for a 120-year old product that consumers are starting to desert and dislike. It's based on a clunky, expensive and complex application platform (IMS) which isn't fit for the 21st century's communications trends. And all the old networks & CS systems will need to be kept in place for at least a decade (maybe two) in most countries, adding to the overall OPEX.

Not pretty.

And in other news, I've had inbound calls on both FaceTime Audio and Skype on my LTE iPhone in the last couple of days. Both needed a couple of seconds juggling with the UI to unlock the screen & answer the call, but seemed to work fine (with HD & optional video, obviously) once they got going. And I'm not even going to mention WebRTC's inevitable rise over the next couple of years.

I'm sure we'll hear lots about VoLTE in Barcelona. But as of yesterday there were 268 LTE networks operating in 100 countries (source: GSA), yet I count only 4 "proper" VoLTE (3 Korean telcos + MetroPCS) launches and a couple of press-release face-savers. That's a big enough red flag.

So, how many more "big problems" still need to be fixed for VoLTE? That's the problem. We don't know. And worse, most of the problem-solvers don't even know each other. I wouldn't want to be a vendor dependent on this space, as you're relying on many many other peoples' ingenuity rather than your own. I'd be investigating alternative sources of business too.

"Sender-pays" is a ridiculous 19th-Century idea misapplied to the Internet

I'm currently doing a fair amount of work looking at next-generation fixed and mobile data tariffs and business models.

One of the concepts I still see expounded is the idea of "sender-pays" models, where a third party (typically a content or application company) pays for a consumer's data usage for a given website or app.

Usually, this is given equivalence to either 1-800 phone numbers, or maybe the original model for the postal service, where the sender (generally) pays for the postage for a product, rather than the recipient. Occasionally, people talk about the Amazon Kindle or some other dedicated hardware such as smart-meters or in-vehicle telematics, where the network provision is vertically-integrated into the offer.

This has recently come to the fore with AT&T's suggested "sponsored data" model, which I believe will fail. It is also a recurrent theme among certain lobbying and industry groups, which keep trying to come up with ways for Internet access to be paid for "twice", usually with spurious references to "sustainability".

(I wrote a full report on the near-certain failure of prospective 1-800 models for mobile data some time ago - http://disruptivewireless.blogspot.co.uk/p/1-800-dataplans-report.html )

I thought it was worth reiterating a few of the reasons why "sender-pays" is a pointless, misleading or maybe even dangerous metaphor to use:

• With very few exceptions, there are multiple "senders" in any given Internet interaction. Most obviously, there is upstream traffic as well as downstream. Who is responsible for the upstream?
• The nature of the web is very bi-directional. Your web-browser sends (and receives) various data in the background, using technologies such as JavaScript.
• Unlike 1-800 and postal models, users frequently use alternative connection mechanisms, especially 3rd-party WiFi. Few content companies will be happy to have different business models depending on how a user connects with their phone/tablet to their servers, especially as they have no control. It will also be in their interest to push users to free WiFi rather than sponsor cellular data
• No content/app companies would want to have 800 different "sender-pays" arrangements with every network operator, and possibly multipliers of that given each has many different plans.
• No content/app company is going to want to pay extra sponsor data where users have more-than-enough in their monthly/PAYG quota. 
• On a typical web-page, many elements are served from CDNs, advertisers and other sources. Except for standalone downloads, it will be very difficult for users to ringfence which bit is sponsored - and even harder to demonstrate this in-app or in-webpage
• There will need to be very strong controls for the sponsor - eg managing fraud & abuse (eg if a competitor tries to rack up bills by downloading excess volumes), dealing with network problems which drive users to hit refresh (or re-download) for problems which are the service provider's responsibility
• Entirely unclear how "sender" models (eg notifications of sposored use) maps onto app-based models, especially in iOS. Many, many "gotchas", eg push notifications
• Poor fit with adapative-rate codecs & other solutions, which will vary the amount of data depending on network conditions and therefore make predictions of volume/cost impossible.
• The content/app company will often be at the mercy of the device/OS choice of the user and how it requests / caches / transmits / compresses data. This is utterly different to a 1-800 number where a phone is a phone is a phone, and a "minute" doesn't differ based on what type of device the user owns

There are many other pitfalls, erroneous assumptions and outright fallacies here. There is also a huge moral hazard around transparency, neutrality and potential damage to the wider Internet model which is a multi-trillion dollar benefit to the global economy and democracy. While AT&T has been very careful to stay on the right side of Net Neutrality for now, it is entirely possible that other operators will be consumer-unfriendly or simply fail to think through the ramifications.

The bottom line is that the sender/recipient model is not the way the Internet works. It is fine as a piece of rhetoric to talk about sponsored / 1-800 / third-party pays models for data services (especially outside Public Internet Access), but it must be remembered that a lot of the metaphors employed are archaic and do not translate to the reality of HTML or application design.

In particular, the use of 3rd-party WiFi puts a coach & horses (deliberate 19th Century reference!) through most of these type of models, as it gives both users and content/app companies a great incentive to arbitrage away even the current use of quota-driven broadband. I've also seen sponsored WiFi from app companies ("Free WiFi if you use Office 365"), which is likely to be better-value & better-publicity for Internet firms.

WebRTC Asia-Pacific Forums: conference report

Last week I attended the first two public WebRTC conferences in Asia, co-organised by TRPC and Inspira Events, in Hong Kong and Singapore. While other Asian events have had presentations and sessions on WebRTC (I’ve spoken myself at Communicasia, ITUWorld & TADS in the last year), these were the first dedicated shows I'm aware of. 

I was heavily involved with both, book-ending the events with two presentations on “What is WebRTC & Why is it Important”, and “What’s next in Asia for WebRTC?”. I also moderated a panel on telecoms/OTT issues around WebRTC, and sat as a panellist on the enterprise session.

Overall, the two events went well, especially given the very short notice with which they were arranged and marketed (there was no website until mid-December!). I think there were about 70-80 people at each, with sponsorship from Temasys (itself from Singapore), Oracle and Cisco.

The two days had a very different “feel” to them. Partly this may have been logistics – I generally find square-ish rooms with “cabaret” seating at round tables to have a better atmosphere than long/thin rooms with rows of chairs. But I’d say that the Singapore audience seemed more knowledgeable and engaged than the HK one, especially in terms of questions and participation/discussion in the breaks.

HK seemed to have quite a lot of enterprise and system-integrator/VAR folk who had heard about the “next big thing” and were there to see if it could be packaged up and sold as a product in the short term, like a videoconferencing or UC solution. There were also some of the local telcos in the room, who seemed more on a fact-finding mission than with existing strategies. 

However, there were no (obvious) local startups or developers or disruptors - something which a couple of other people have concurred with subsequently. Some of the telcos are quite advanced on areas like connectivity (pervasive telco-administered venue WiFi, for example), but I was disappointed not to encounter Digital Services / Telco-OTT folk more.

Singapore, on the other hand, seemed to be more solidly web and telco-centric, as well as some people from UC/conferencing backgrounds, plus a few investors, consultants and industry luminaries. It is also the home of Temasys (disclosure: I am an advisor) which has obviously built some local awareness, and brought in some of its clients/partners.

There were also some vocal and knowledgeable SP participants both from Singapore itself and other places such as Malaysia. There were also a few "big vendor" participants and a few web players.

The three sponsors presented in both cities:

• Oracle gave a counterpoint to my own upbeat introduction, by examining the problems & issues faced by WebRTC in real-world deployments, obviously with a focus on areas assisted by its own gateway/SBC platforms. It covered aspects such as security (eg protecting against WebRTC DDoS attacks), scalability of key infrastructure domains (eg media handling in large-scale NAT traversal use-cases), ID management and application management across multiple network transitions ("rehydration"). While I agree with some of my more scornful peers that some of these issues might well be dealt with in alternative fashion (including using open-source elements), it seems likely that many SPs, large enterprises and platform players will look for packaged and integrated vendor offers.
• Temasys focused on the emergence of "embedded communications". (Slideshare presentation here), with both background and client examples. This broadly aligns with my own view that embedded / platform-based voice and video will become ever-more important, and that WebRTC is the catalyst to take it to massmarket. Using an analogy with a "slice of pizza" it pointed out that WebRTC will manifest in various ways, such as mobile SDKs, It also covered an element I'm seeing more & more - plug-ins for IE & Safari to enable WebRTC before official support. A couple of interesting customer prospects/projects were highlighted - including embedding video into a social/dating app.
• Cisco talked mainly from the perspective of collaboration - essentially talking about the evolution of the environment for its products such as WebEx and Jabber. It indicated upcoming support for WebRTC - not just for conferencing access, but also features such as "co-browsing" for areas such as B2C support, and "social collaboration". I've already seen a demo of a "guest access" version of the Jabber client, albeit one using a dedicated plug-in for creating SIP in the browser, rather than "proper" WebRTC. Apparently there's been a Jabber SDK for years, but few app developers have exploited it - there is a hope that WebRTC should solve that in future with a friendlier SDK. The speaker also referenced ongoing work on QoS mechanisms for WebRTC, both in SP and enterprise networks. He predicted 2014 as a year of early releases and a lot of work on UIs and related elements, with proper take-off next year.

A rival analyst from Ovum in HK presented his view that, while enterprise WebRTC might happen sooner, in the broader telecom services space it would be "confined to low end services" and probably had a 3-5 year time horizon, because of delays in standardisation & interoperability. He also tried (rather bizarrely in my view) to estimate WebRTC market size as a fraction of Ovum's figure of "amount lost by operators to OTT VoIP", ie how much can be "blamed" on this technology. I'm not 100% convinced that it's been properly factored into many general "voice and messaging" forecasts at all yet.

Overall, my perception was that he was seeing telco WebRTC through the lens of conventional services (SS7/IMS integration) which I agree will take a lot of time to emerge, but missing the various other operator involvements through enterprise units, developer platforms, digital services and so forth. This is why I advise telcos to focus no more than 20-30% of their total WebRTC effort & investment on areas like core/IMS integration.


Perhaps the most disappointing speakers for me were from Google, who resolutely pitched the company's enterprise cloud suite, with virtually no mention of WebRTC, even when prodded during the Q&A. It's possible that the developer/WebRTC/HTML5 team just weren't available to speak, but it was deeply disappointing that there was no evangelism, given what I've seen from them before. That said, the presentations themselves were pretty interesting on a standalone basis - just not especially relevant to the main theme of the events.


In my view, it is this lack of HTML5/WebRTC evangelism (and, perhaps, developer appetite for it) that may hold back Asia-Pacific development of WebRTC, outside discrete arenas such as service providers in Japan (eg NTT's Skyway platform) and big projects led by the likes of the events' sponsors. I'm not seeing an awful lot of grass-roots web and app development and tinkering with voice and video, in the same way we're seeing WebRTC innovation in the US, Europe and a couple of other pockets. It might be that the catalyst will be one of the big regional Internet players - Tencent, Alibaba, LINE and so on - adopting it first. (It's worth noting that the events were inexpensive to attend - $100 level or so - so that should not have been a major barrier to startups).


I'd like to see Google, Mozilla and others get more involved in WebRTC developer engagement in the region, trying to run the types of halfday tutorials or hackathons I've seen well-attended at events elsewhere. It would be nice to the other Western platform players such as Tokbox, Plivo and Twilio paying attention as well, as they tend to have good outreach to their existing communities.


Overall, I found both events interesting, and illuminating both about the general state of WebRTC and specifically where (some parts of) Asia is in its evolution. The co-organisers need credit for bringing the forums together so rapidly - both over Xmas and with Chinese New Year looming this week. Ideally, I'll get a chance to take the temperature in other parts of the region soon - especially Japan, South Korea and China, all of which seem to be putting a lot of attention on the technology in terms of research and standards participation, but with only limited visible output so far. On other general aside: in my view the companies based in Asia which are most vocal about WebRTC (thus far) are NTT, Temasys and Huawei. It will be interesting to observe which players come next.

WebRTC DataChannel: Yahoo acquires PeerCDN. 2014 just got more interesting....

There were two disappointments for me from last week's WebRTC conference in Paris & recent ongoing news:

a) Still no major public WebRTC involvement from other big Web players beyond Google (unless you count Amazon Mayday which is still unconfirmed as WebRTC or not)
b) No really exciting new things happening in WebRTC DataChannel for the past 6 months

Both changed yesterday, with Yahoo! buying WebRTC startup PeerCDN. 

In my presentation at the Paris conference, I predicted that 2014 (see Slide 22 here) would see "major Internet players using WebRTC" and "Surprises, especially around data use of WebRTC". Looks like even I've been caught out by the speed of WebRTC evolution - they've both happened with 2 weeks of 2013 still left.

Silicon Valley jokes about Yahoo! acquisitions aside, this is a really interesting move. PeerCDN is one of a handful of startups trying to use WebRTC's browser-to-browser data communications ability, to reduce bandwidth/CDN costs for content companies - and ideally to reduce latency as well. Peer5 and StreamRoot (which was in Paris last week) are also in this space.

The idea is simple - rather than having all users download content from the company's own servers, or that of a commercial CDN like Akamai or Limelight, have some of it downloaded from each other. If two people are on the same site at the same time (or perhaps with cached content in their browsers), connect the two browsers together using WebRTC's less well-known DataChannel API, and deliver certain chunks of content like that instead.

There are various implications:

- Reduce the outbound bandwidth costs (or CDN delivery costs) of the content company
- Improves website response times, especially if the users concerned are geographically close to each other
- Indirectly increases uplink local-access bandwidth consumption, as the users transmit some of  their data back "upstream" to the other peers
- Represents a legal use-case for P2P data, as the content company is in control, and indeed in approval.
- Impacts the potential revenues and margins for traditional CDN players, and massively reduces entry barriers to that market
- Makes it harder for telcos to monetise on-net CDNs - although perhaps easier to launch them, if they white-label services such as StreamRoot's.
- It doesn't matter if only a % of browsers are WebRTC-capable. Where it's not supported by a given user's device, the content delivery reverts to Plan A - some reduction in bandwidth costs is definitely better than nothing.

Now, it's one thing doing all this on a small scale and demonstrating it at WebRTC conferences. It's quite another building it into a service that competes meaningfully with the likes of Akamai, which have global footprints, established salesforces and customer relationships, and many other value-added services - and also a fearsome army of IPR lawyers and an arsenal of patents. 

Yahoo!, for all its problems, is at least in the category of companies that can play those games - or else perhaps it may prefer to use the technology internally, rather than exposing it as a 3rd party service. Various commentators have suggested it might speed up its notoriously laggy webmail, but I don't think that's the key application here, as little content is shared between users. It's also possible that the CDN project will get lost in the background, with Yahoo! actually just buying the three engineering innovators behind the work, for more general development on WebRTC.

As for DataChannel, this is one more signal that it's perhaps even more important and disruptive than the voice and video bits of WebRTC. We've already seen it used for various types of screen-sharing, Google's Chromecast dongle and a few other early attempts. If the CDN use-case proves properly commercialisable by Yahoo/PeerCDN or others, then it's another landmark.

Other use-cases for DataChannel are also being widely talked about - certainly app/screen-sharing will be a major (if unspectacular) one, most likely bolted onto conferencing and UC solutions. But the real "fun stuff" will occur when it enables realtime data streaming for things like sensors, Internet-of-Things objects, health monitoring and so forth. Let's see what happens - but I have a feeling that we'll get a lot more than just yet another "Skype in the Browser" clone from DataChannel. 

This is also an area that telcos should pay attention to - well away from the ongoing IMS/WebRTC integration for VoLTE or anything else. I've said for a while that WebRTC needs to be dispersed across multiple business units in operators, and not just left to the voice/core-networks group. Opportunities for exploiting WebRTC DataChannel should be high on the priority lists of the CDN group, content/video optimisation, M2M, healthcare & other verticals, devices and numerous other telco business units. If operators don't get going on this immediately - at least in the labs or other skunkworks - then who knows what other 3-person startups will create independently.

Overall, I think this acquisition is a very interesting move. It marks the first overt buyout of a WebRTC player by a Silicon Valley behemoth (Telefonica/Tokbox was something else). That could trigger more VC attention, as well as focus attention on whether Google or Apple or Facebook or LinkedIn also start spending money on the next stage of the web. It's also a wakeup call for all those in the WebRTC community who forget that data is often at least as important as voice or video.


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