Professional Documents
Culture Documents
November 2013
Author: Dean Bubley
Contact: information@disruptive-analysis.com
Disruptive Analysis
Dont Assume
Introduction
This document considers the evolving role of media processing (MP) capabilities in
telecom networks, reflecting many operators moves especially towards WebRTC,
but also considering synergy with IMS services, telco-OTT propositions, cloud
services and developer platforms.
As operators adopt more forms of IP communications either transitioning old
services to all-IP networks, or creating new ones it will be necessary to consider
MP as a specific fundamental building-block, and optimise its deployment where
possible. WebRTC is a particular enabler of the democratisation of voice and video
services, which will lead to multiple stakeholder groups and business units within
operators working on IP communications in tandem.
The main argument is that flexibility and scalability are paramount for MP, as the
exact communications applications, their need for media processing involvement
and their rates of growth are hard to predict.
The market for both voice and video is fragmenting in numerous ways, in stark
contrast to the telecoms industry history of one or two main well-defined standalone
services. We are seeing the emergence of numerous models for human realtime
connectivity, and in particular we should expect the integration of communications
within websites and apps as well. While this is a hugely exciting trend and will drive
numerous service creation or development opportunities, it will need a willingness to
experiment to create these new offerings cheaply and effectively. Competitors to
telcos will certainly look to cloud-based platforms pragmatically for the more complex
capabilities, and operators will need to follow suit.
Rather than recreate MP functions for each new service or application, it makes
sense to deploy shared and virtualised MP servers that can be re-used for different
purposes as required. This also fits with the increasingly-popular concept of network
function virtualisation (NFV), and may also reflect the need for intelligent location and
management of MP elements for best latency and transport traffic minimisation.
It is also useful to consider the concept of MPaaS (MP
capabilities are offered just to internal customer units
externally to 3rd parties on a pay-per-use basis. This
providers broader IaaS/PaaS cloud service portfolio, or
centric API initiative.
Either way, the opportunity to create shared MP resources, which can service
traditional requirements such as IMS/VoLTE, plus new innovations around WebRTC
and beyond, seems to be a compelling concept. Obviously, the devil is in the detail,
but the general principle seems elegant and worth deeper investigation.
Note: This document has been commissioned by Radisys, but represents the
independent & consistent viewpoint of Disruptive Analysis (as at time of publication).
Disruptive Analysis has retained full editorial control over the content and stance.
Disruptive Analysis
Dont Assume
Standalone
calls
Circuit
IP
Embedded
app/web
calls
Non-call
comms
Disruptive Analysis
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A new tier of cloud telephony service providers have emerged, which seem
to have captured the imaginations of both developers and (in some cases)
telcos. Firms such as Twilio, Tropo, Apidaze and others are offering APIs and
development kits for the creation of advanced communications services,
either voice- or video-based. These platform vendors are often cooperating
with telecoms firms (and some have even been acquired by carriers), a
promising signal that brings together some interesting hybrid propositions.
WebRTC allows various disparate units of operators to experiment with voice
and video, rather than remain dependent on the traditional core network team
and basic services as building blocks. It reduces the bar to integrating
communications in context with websites or mobile apps. (WebRTC is
considered in greater depth below). It can also be used to extend carrier
services beyond the traditional coverage areas to create scale and utility. This
may enable competition with pure Internet/app players, although there are
few obvious success stories so far.
Taken together, these seem to indicate that we are close to a tipping-point. Certainly,
the messaging industry has witnessed a huge explosion of alternative approaches,
beyond traditional SMS. Something similar seems about to happen to voice as well,
especially as some evidence suggests that younger users are finding the interruptive
nature of phone calls anathema and intrusive. What remains unclear is how fast the
shift will happen, and whether or not we will continue to expect widespread
interoperability between the different services, and whether the landscape will be
characterised by carrier versus Internet competition, or some measure of
convergence of these domains..
Disruptive Analysis
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Peer-to-peer, where the connection just goes directly from user to user,
without the media streams going via a gateway or server in the middle.
Transit via a server or gateway, which can link together multiple users, add
value to the media flows through processing, interconnect with other systems
(eg PSTN, IMS, UC) and act as the pivot for a range of monetisable business
models.
Disruptive Analysis
Dont Assume
But perhaps the best indicator of its success paradoxically is that the standard
approach is already fragmenting. Pragmatism is winning over dogmatism. There is
now a lot of momentum around putting voice and video into mobile apps, even
though Apple doesnt directly support WebRTC. The actual specific purity of
WebRTC is starting to look less relevant. There are enough useful open-source bits
(eg the media-engine, encryption and firewall standards), plus assorted WebRTC
cloud platforms/SDKs for developers, that the Javascript API is not actually
necessary in some cases.
As a result WebRTC or at least its very close relatives is moving outside the
browser into 3rd-party APIs for embedding voice/video easily into apps, or
alternatively with more hardcore developers just using the components to create
their own home-brewed RTC solution.
One side-effect of this will be that browser-browser P2P uses of WebRTC may get
overtaken by non-browser cases that transit servers, and perhaps also get
gatewayed to other systems. All things being equal, Disruptive Analysis believes this
may further drive demand for media processing in WebRTC.
Another angle to WebRTC is that it allows the streaming of realtime data as well as
voice and video traffic. This could be web-page components between browsers,
sensor data, or a variety of M2M and P2P-type use cases. There will likely be many
surprised with WebRTC DataChannel in coming years. It is as yet unclear whether
such data might also be classed as media from the perspective of the MP
capabilities of the network.
Disruptive Analysis
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with basic traditional telephony as by far the most dominant application video starts
with a clean sheet, and several directions for innovation.
Is WebRTC going to be the main catalyst for the creation of new video
communications applications?
Will videoconferencing and calling become pervasive? For businesses
mostly, or for consumers? And as web conferencing has, will it create new,
revenue-generating use cases for remote collaboration?
Will video communications be driven by in-browser uses (eg customer
support on a web page), in-app (similar to todays Skype & FaceTime usage),
or linked to dedicated hardware?
1-to-1, 1-to-many, or groups?
Will we see mashups of video with games or educational tools? For
example, superimposing images of users real faces onto avatars?
Will broader use of telepresence become important for example, a virtual
window linking offices in London & New York, allowing staff to interact as if
they were in the same place.
How much video will transit mobile networks (3G, 4G, satellite etc) rather than
fixed/WiFi connections, and what constraints will that bring?
Will there be a need for much greater amounts of video recording, analytics
and processing for certain applications? If so, will that be carried out on the
device itself, the edge of the network, the core, or in servers in the cloud?
Will most video communications be confined to islands, or will there be a
broad need for interconnection (and therefore transcoding and other
functions)?
How much video communications will be driven by IMS platforms, rather than
pure web or traditional enterprise systems? What about new domains for
video such as TV, M2M or vertical-industry systems?
Will we see a need for video communications acceleration to reduce
latency, like a 2-way version of a content delivery network?
Where will video communications (& processing) fit alongside operators
growing initiatives around APIs, developers and partnerships? Will telcos be
importers, exporters, or traders of video?
The right answer is all of the above, plus probably a lot more.
This presents several problems to a telecom operator wanting to participate directly
in these services, either as an owner and operator, or as a facilitator or hub for thirdparties. Various of the possible tasks and sources of value require some quite
heavy lifting in terms of media processing. One or more services may suddenly
experience viral adoption as well, demanding scaling for the media elements without
necessarily requiring other functions to be expanded as fast. Adoption of a new
codec or new screen resolution could occur almost overnight, further driving the
need for flexibility and capacity expansion.
Disruptive Analysis view is that one solution to this problem is to decouple media
processing as a separate network function if possible, rather than expect to integrate
it with other network elements. A shared, virtualised software MP resource
especially if enabled with appropriate APIs could fit into a broad range of these
scenarios. At one level, it could work as an MRF for IMS applications, particularly
fitting with VoLTE functions and value-add services. But it could also form part of a
standalone videoconferencing or collaboration suite, or as part of a hosted/wholesale
WebRTC platform for developers.
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Implied in decoupling the MP from the application are two key benefits:
Disruptive Analysis
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Figure 4: IMS will only be used for some future telecom services
VoLTE &
RCS
Corporate
UC
Video
conf
Network
APIs
Core ntwk
& legacy
voice
Corporate
UC
Video
conf
Developer
APIs
IMS,
slowly
Major
vendors
VC specialists or
WebRTC
3rd party
cloud
comms
IMS as a
platform
Consumer
Business
OTTs
Developers
The Theory
The Reality
In effect, many telecoms units now effectively disintermediate their own core
network organisations. Consider hypothetically the content division of a telco,
wanting to evolve an existing music download service to support karaoke. Or
perhaps an IPTV unit wanting to create a new form of reality TV. It is highly unlikely
that either of these would be based on the companys IMS core, because it would
prove too inflexible and inaccessible to the bulk of designers and developers involved
in the project. It would also bring with it legacy business models (not least, huge
teams of lawyers) and a tie into a subscription approach which may not be
applicable. It would also probably not easily support certain media features such as
stereo sound, easy fast-forward/pause, offline mode and so forth. The underlying SIP
signalling protocol is optimised as the acronym suggest for sessions rather than
more general forms of interaction.
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Disruptive Analysis
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In Disruptive Analysis view, operators should probably not be putting more than 2030% of their overall WebRTC budget and effort into IMS integration there is so
much more to it, than merely using WebRTC as a front-end to IMS. It is notable that
NTT and Telefonica, in particular, are distributing WebRTC activities more broadly
across their respective groups.
The practicalities of adding WebRTC front-ends to existing telecoms services (or new
ones like VoLTE) are very involved, with many extra moving-parts and touch points
throughout the organisation. Lawful intercept, testing, customer support systems,
product design and creation, OSS/BSS additions and so forth all need to be in place
for addition of WebRTC to mainstream core services like telephony. While all this is
important, it will be hard to rush.
In the meantime, telcos need to experiment with and deploy WebRTC elsewhere too.
Among the concepts already seen discussed include:
In brief, pretty much any unit of a telco that creates a website or an app should be
thinking about how to exploit WebRTC. As before, choosing winners at this stage is
nearly impossible, but what is certain is that timing will matter. Waiting for the slow
wheels of IMS integration to grind to a result will not help all of these other
opportunities.
In other words telco use of WebRTC should be a microcosm of the wider
marketplace, not just extension of the IMS/SS7 core. It should involve a diverse
group of innovators willing to choose different trade-offs between QoS and time-tomarket, and worry less about interoperability, roaming and other traditional telco
business components. That said, it might also allow telcos to leverage their network
capabilities for prioritising traffic, QoS, compliance, integrated billing and
provisioning, etc., which could have value to certain subscriber segments such as
Disruptive Analysis Ltd, November 2013
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Disruptive Analysis
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business users. Such propositions are very complex to bring to reality, however
many previous suggested use-cases such as 1-800-style reverse billing for mobile
data have proven unworkable. Disruptive Analysis is watching the evolving
WebRTC/policy domain keenly for signs of realistic applications.
And, where possible, it could make therefore make sense for those groups to share
resources such as media processing, rather than each buying its own separate
infrastructure. Clearly, that may pose some organisational complexities of its own
especially if the shared MP function is used for IMS MRF purposes as well as
standalone WebRTC, but it may be possible to retrofit web-APIs to existing softwarebased MRFs to extend their abilities towards other applications.
Figure 5: Shared media processing / MPaaS can serve IMS & WebRTC
The MPaaS concept can apply both inside and outside telcos:
Internally, having an MPaaS cloud function could enable various 1st party
business units to consume MP capabilities. These units could be regional
operating subsidiaries creating local WebRTC services, the enterprise
communications unit, consumer content and IPTV business, and so forth.
One of the anchor tenants would likely be the core/IMS group which will
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Disruptive Analysis
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want to use MRF capabilities for VoLTE and perhaps other services such as
videoconferencing (Disruptive Analysis retains serious doubts about the
viability of RCS/joyn, but that would hypothetically fit here too).
Close partners of the operator could also benefit here, with custom
integrations to the MPaaS. For example, a telco may decide to work with a
specialist firm providing WebRTC cloud/API services, or develop a unique
variant of a videoconferencing bridging service. Other examples of 2 nd party
interactions could be vendors offering hosted/managed applications, but
without having the full heavy lifting MP capacity to deal with peaks in-house.
3rd-party customers for MPaaS would look more similar to a traditional cloudservices model. Provided either through a developer portal, or perhaps with
capabilities bundled into telco-provided SDKs, voice and video capabilities
could be offered to long tail application creators or enterprise users. One
scenario might be for large companies wanting to manage peaks/troughs in
videoconferencing usage, offloading peak traffic to an MPaaS provider.
Organisational challenges
While the idea of shared media processing resource, spanning multiple domains and
applications, sounds compelling at first sight, it has to be recognised that it will need
to fit with the real world of telco organisational structures as well.
Historically, operators core network businesses have been very much geared
towards the official, 3GPP-approved route to service infrastructure investment and
deployment. The expectation has been for all or most operators to deploy IMS, and
for that to serve as the basis for most future services and revenue. In reality however,
disparate arms of the operator are already pursuing their own agendas. While IMS is
and will be important for some operators, it will be neither universal nor a lynchpin of
value for others.
Enterprise divisions have partnered with UC and videoconferencing third-party
vendors to offer hosted/multi-tenant platforms rather than build them directly into the
core. Digital lifestyle groups are examining a range of ways to build VoIP or social
apps as differentiators, often with Telco-OTT models and radically different
infrastructure approaches. Vertical units considering educational technology, security
services, developer platforms, interactive TV or even M2M applications are ploughing
their own furrow.
While at some level Disruptive Analysis applauds this decentralisation process, at
some point it seems possible that we will move back to a more coordinated
approach, to avoid duplication of effort and costs but also to retain flexibility and the
removal of traditional telco dogma and conservatism about platforms.
One such approach might be for there to be a new distributed network division,
intended to develop a telcos network in such a way that it could support any or all of
these, at moderate cost and with maximum flexibility. One likely path to that end-goal
comes from the general move towards the programmable telco, with two other
white-hot acronyms, SDN and NFV.
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Disruptive Analysis
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The idea of shared media processing functions, as well as cloud-based MPaaS, very
much fits with this wider philosophy, although it was not identified by ETSI as one of
its initial targets for virtualisation. Nevertheless, this paper suggests a rationale for
exactly that to occur.
Conclusion
The communications industry is about to get much more complicated. The age of
monolithic services such as circuit-based phone calls and standalone voice
services. It will be replaced with a much more fragmented landscape of new forms of
IP voice communication, the rising importance of video, and innumerable attempts to
move from standalone calls to app/web-embedded contextual communications.
This presents several challenges to service providers, especially as many are being
forced to invest in IMS infrastructure just to maintain their existing service portfolios in
an era of LTE and fibre. As well as continue with the more classical approach to
voice and/or video, many will exploit the simplicity of WebRTC and cloud
communications to launch new, non-IMS products as well. They will also likely
partner with various 3rd-party vendors, and open up capabilities to various groups of
developers.
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Disruptive Analysis
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While it is hard to predict which services will ultimately prove winners and losers, it
seems highly likely that this fragmentation will massively increase the need for media
processing in many instances. While not every scenario needs MP functions, many
will do especially if we get incompatibility between various forms of almost
WebRTC as well as a desire to interconnect with legacy systems.
For this reason, Disruptive Analysis believes that some form of shared, virtualised
media processing function makes sense, especially if it can simultaneously service
the needs of IMS (eg the MRF function) as well as being easily-accessible via APIs
to others working on WebRTC use-cases. While this may not happen in its full
incarnation overnight, owing to the practicalities of telco inter-departmental
cooperation, it also fits with the general trend towards NFV and should be considered
by CTOs as a long-term architectural goal.
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Disruptive Analysis
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About Radisys
Radisys (NASDAQ: RSYS) is a major vendor enabling wireless infrastructure solutions for
telecom, aerospace and defence applications. Radisys MRF (Media Resource Function) and
T-Series Virtualised Platforms, coupled with Trillium software, services and market expertise,
enable customers to bring their products to market faster with lower investment and risk.
Radisys technology is used in a wide variety of 3G & 4G / LTE mobile network applications
including: small cell Radio Access Networks (RAN), wireless core network elements, deep
packet inspection (DPI) and policy management equipment; conferencing and media services
including voice, video and data, as well as commercial offerings for network applications that
support the aerospace and defence markets. www.radisys.com
@radisys
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