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Saturday, May 24, 2003
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Observation #3
:: Is VoIP the "killer app" for WiFi hotspots ? ::
In the evangelising of WiFi hotspots, guys like David Huges (BT Openzone) are making noises about Voice over IP (VoIP). In general, in the WiFi v 3G "debate", it is more useful to compare WiFi + Internet to 3G + Internet, so that we are talking about similar things, but there are still some practical differences to bear in mind. I think that in comparing the two, we should be really talking about public access, or ubiquity. Much of the WiFi punditry is to do with publicly accessible hotspots, which is using a LAN technology to implement a wide area network. No one argues about the capabilities of WiFi as a LAN technology; it’s fantastic. The economics and efficacy of using this for a pseudo-WAN are what count. For hotspots to be a major contender to 3G, as gets argued, then there have to be compelling reasons to use them. Telephony is not one of them. I simply don’t buy it, even if we call it something else like Voice Over IP (VoIP).
I don't think we can treat VoIP as just another use of the Internet and one that is otherwise agnostic of the access technology. A customer is not going to buy a WiFi phone because it's WiFi, nor are they going to switch to VoIP because it's VoIP. They need a reason to do so. Perhaps we should be talking in terms of "killer needs", not "killer applications".
Unless we are just talking about WiFi as a cordless technology (which has more merit in the US for various reasons to do with the evolution of cordless), then the application is still telephony, no matter what we call it. To deliver useful telephony services to the user, such as access to the public phone network, billing, call handling and so forth, someone has to pay for it somewhere. That's the first problem. But the implication that VoIP could be a driver for public hotspots seems odd. This is the bit I don't get and needs explaining to me. We already have a perfectly good public access telephony network called cellular. What will motivate the average user to go and find a hotspot to make phone calls?
Due to the large cellular install base, the argument does not hold in reverse. That is, there will be compelling reasons for users to adopt VoIP as and when their mobile service provider offers it, most likely transparently as a means to an end, like powerful call handling options, interworking with instant messaging and so on. The convergence capabilities of VoIP are its best asset.
Combined with the more powerful networking options that the underlying cellular network can offer like presence technology and location sensing, there are myriad service opportunities, most of which, I contend, will be driven by their truly ubiquitous availability. For example, if I am at lunch then I want my calls handled in a certain way – perhaps only my top clients can call me. This only makes sense with ubiquitous access as ubiquity means I don’t have to worry about where I will be when a call comes in – I will always be able to handle it. Using location, perhaps I only want to receive certain calls when I’m at home, regardless of what time.
One thing that gets overlooked is that there are two variants of 3G – time duplexed (TDD) and frequency duplexed (FDD). It is possible to operate TDD in unlicensed bands and it is much better than WiFi as it is easier to irradiate a whole area, like an entire shopping plaza, not just the Starbucks bit. TDD pundits, like IPWireless, talk about hot zones and not hot spots (see earlier blog posting). If TDD becomes widespread (big IF at the moment) then dual mode 3G phones can potentially disrupt matters. I can sit in a Starbucks and jump my laptop or PDA onto a TDD carrier by hopping via the phone using Bluetooth, ignoring the Starbucks WiFi altogether. Or, I can go out into the mall and still remain connected.
WiFi will be useful for hotspots in limited cases, but I don’t see a long term viable business model and certainly not one based on telephony. Calling it something else – VoIP – is just sophistry on the part of its advocates. They are trying to evangelise hotspots, but doing it rather badly in my opinion. On the other hand, it is easier to evangelise 3G, but it hardly ever gets done for some reason.
11:26:59 AM 
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Observation #2 (a short one)
:: Isn't DECT free too ? ::
Seybold is right that WiFi phones will not dent the wide-area ("always on") voice services market and Marty Cooper ("inventor" of cellular) has already done the maths to show that a sufficiently dense network of WiFi to compete with cellular is impractical. OK, no one is saying that this is what hotspot vendors are intending, but then we quickly seem to forget that wide-area access to voice is an essential part of life now and so the operators have to be involved somewhere. This leads to all kinds of complications if a hotspot vendor, or anyone else, including the enterprise, is planning to offer network services themselves, like voicemail, call forwarding etc.
These problems are currently being overlooked in the visible discussions on this topic. Don't forget that right now we already have a free wireless telephony standard called DECT, but the attempts to interwork DECT with GSM never came off.
The problem is that we tend to think of wireless too literally, i.e. as doing something without wires, as if all we have is a replacement for a featureless piece of wire. Telephony needs a network that includes switching, routing, signalling and so on. Modern telephony needs intelligent networks that also include voicemail, call handling (e.g. diversion), call conferencing and so on. Deploying WiFi phones enables only a tiny part of the shebang to be done for free. Who's going to build and pay for the rest of the network? How is it going to interwork with the wide area one, as it must?
These are the thorny questions that are seldom discussed. The DECT pundits ran away from them and the cellular guys built cheaper base stations called picocells.
The devil (i.e. true costs) is in the detail.
3:16:33 AM
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Observation #1
:: Mobile data for the smaller guys (SME not LSE)::
Here’s an interesting report from Pyramid Research that suggests operators should be focusing on providing an aggregated portfolio of shrink-wrapped, easily deployable wireless apps. They should forget about the large-scale enterprise, where the integration efforts and expertise are beyond the operator core competences.
Of course, some of us already thought this and were beginning to think that the operators would never take SMEs seriously and we would have to languish in the hinterlands of the nascent wireless data revolution. One hears that unless you have at least 100 mobiles, then the corporate concierge at your not-so-friendly operator won’t open the door.
Nevermind 3G or WiFi, although WiFi is already penetrating the SMEs thanks to its simplicity, but the obviously useful wireless email and text messaging applications are still woefully absent from the scene. Interestingly enough, for those who think Europe leads all in wireless, the US have for some time had decent low-cost and easy-to-deploy wireless email solutions. One of these, the desktop Outlook solution from Seven has finally made its way to the UK market, as previously discussed on my blog.
I found my trial of it via O2’s offering (xmail) to be useful enough, but I stopped short of the 9.99GBP per month simply because O2 are not promising to support roaming access in the future, so my coming in from Vodafone might get chopped. Who wants to sign up for a service with that kind of customer promise? Silly really, as O2 should surely see the benefits of keeping my 9.99 per month and tempting me onto other useful services, and eventually, who knows? Maybe I’d switch to their network. Why not? If they can demonstrate consistent interest in my business needs, then that’s novel enough to stick with them.
Having said this, I have to take a step back and put on my usability hat, i.e. become an average user for a moment, those unfortunate bunch who we forget are the end users of our wares. As reported in my review earlier, when I accessed xmail using my T68i, it didn’t get past the login screen. Therefore, I resorted to using my Palm Vx with a TDK Bluetooth cradle, which as also previously reported on my blog, required Voodoo to configure. Somewhere in the bowels of the net I found the key to my woes was in the form of an obvious string - *99***3# - which is the number I have to dial to access the GPRS modem on my phone. Of course it is!
This is the point the report is making. Shrink-wrapped means it comes out of the box and ready to go. Even hardened product buffs who attended one of my courses, from a particularly well known operator, confessed to the frustrations of configuring mobile devices. Admittedly, O2 have packaged a neater edition of the xmail service with their XDA, but frankly how many people are going to go out and buy an XDA just for this? Not many I suspect, but then if a basket of aggregated services were available, then perhaps a lot more would be tempted.
Plugging my own wares for a minute, at Magic E we have come up with a no-brainer way of accessing databases using SMS. The idea is that all companies these days are keeping some business data in a database, even if it’s a simple Access database, and you’ll usually find someone who knows how to configure and use Access. The ability to interact with a database using text messaging has many possibilities, such as customer management, supply management, time management and so on.
The problem is that programming a two-way text messaging application for database manipulation is an expert task. That’s why we introduced Xsonic DataNow, which literally allows the database administrator to draw the process flow against the database and within minutes they can deploy an interactive text messaging application, in effect a low-cost and easy-to-deploy wireless application. We are working to simplify the whole process even further and, when the customers are ready for it, upgrade the application to support Java micro applications on the phone, not for the sake of it, but because we can improve usability quite significantly (a limitation of text messaging, not our application).
The reason that applications like this aren’t pounced upon by the operators is because, as the report mentions, they are too busy chasing consumer applications, where the likes of Big Brother (a naff TV program) can attract millions of messages. A team of field engineers or sales guys are hardly going to be sending millions, not even thousands, of messages to and from a database. Nevertheless, the operators are missing an important opportunity, and one that will go a long way towards opening the doors of our minds towards the potential of mobile services, and, ultimately, yes, even the dreaded “white elephant”.........3G.
1:45:16 AM
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© Copyright
2003
Paul Golding.
Last update:
6/7/2003; 2:29:31 PM.
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