Friday, October 31. 2008Australian Mobile Carriers - Yet Another Telstra?John Linton I had 'breakfast' with a long term business acquaintance this morning (which basically meant we both had a cup of pretty ordinary coffee and he compounded his mistake by attempting to eat an 'omelet' and some exceptionally dry toast). At least the view was very pleasant. He was 'visiting' Sydney as he works in Hong Kong and his trip was largely based on looking for 'partners' in his SMS and associated business services. We first met back in our IBM days and have occasionally run in to each other in strange parts of the world every few years ever since we both left IBM to pursue opportunities elsewhere. Like Exetel, he is very interested in SMS over HSPA/VoIP/Mobile handsets and the implementation he showed me on his 'globally roamed' iPhone was a very sophisticated implementation which is considerably in advance of Exetel's current version and was an 'eye opener' for me to see what amazing things could be done with the computing power and memory of today's advanced mobile hand sets. It was a very impressive demonstration and, if I hadn't already been 'sold' on the concept I just about would have bought on the spot - it had so much 'pizzazz' and 'must have that' appeal. I'm sure he will be successful in selling his software to at least one of the Australian mobile companies as it was such a beautifully designed and presented product with so much eye appeal as well as being a major cost saving to the end user - and there lies the problem as he went on to explain. He had been in Sydney for almost two weeks and had generated no interest from the people he had met with so far at the four Australian mobile carriers. Now, we are talking about a very skilled sales person with a great deal of business acumen and a very senior position with a very large Chinese communications company - not some local 'account manager' or 'product manager'. In my eyes the SMS product he showed me was as good as I could imagine any product could be in every aspect of ease of use, presentation, functionality and cost saving and integrated with every commonly used 'name list' and third party program. The problem, as he explained it, was that the mobile carrier personnel he had approached in Australia (and before that New Zealand) simply weren't interested in it because instead of seeing how it would generate additional net revenue and boost the sale of HSPA services they couldn't get past the likelihood that it would reduce SMS revenue - which I suppose it might if you wanted to look at it as an SMS replacement function rather than as an SMS enhancement of several magnitudes. I couldn't provide any sensible information in terms of who he should approach within the carriers (or their major resellers) as I have no dealings at any senior level with any of them and as Exetel are so small we couldn't even 'trial sell' his product as we are far too early in coming to grips with what is required to build any sort of 'presence' in the Australian HSPA market places. As I drove back to the office I was encouraged that it was possible to develop such an appealing product and I have renewed hope for the ongoing development of the SMS via VOIP service that we brought to market a little over 12 months ago which has since been very enthusiasticly taken up by Exetel ADSL users and we are now working on the HSPA version with the first 'iteration' already in use and working quite well. To get from where we are today to what I saw an hour or so ago is quite a distance but, at the end of the day, "its only a few lines of code". Where we find the innate skills and the capabilities to write those few lines is another issue altogether. However - we have always managed to do it. We must increase the resources allocated to these developments and pull back the end dates for their deployment. Lucky we have such brilliant and skillful programmers. It seems to me, and I would be the first person to admit that my knowledge of the mobile telephone market is extremely 'slight' (and that's being kind), that software developments like fring and nimbuzz and, on a much grander scale, the SMS over HSPA I saw today represent significant opportunities for businesses to not only reduce the ever growing costs of providing mobile services to operate their businesses but are capable of truly adding new functionality - almost in the same way that the introduction of mobile telephony added extraordinary new capabilities by being able to make and receive calls anywhere rather than only at the end of a piece of cable attached to a PABX. I've been using fring exclusively since I returned from Sri Lanka to make and receive mobile calls over Exetel's VoIP service and, as when we switched the office wire line services from ISDN to VoIP, almost no-one I call, or who calls me, can tell any difference. The delay using fring varies from virtually none to 'noticeable' and we must implement local servers to eliminate that aspect of VoIP over HSPA but there are many solutions and it's only a matter of deciding on how we do that. I will start using version two of our SMS over HSPA function some time next week which will be more of a challenge for me as I've never had a need to use SMS in the past so have only ever received SMS from all those annoying sources that just require me to delete them rather than reply to them. I've never regretted moving Exetel's telephony from ISDN to VoIP, and not just for the obvious call savings - the added functionality that VoIP allowed us to enhance our business by hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past three years by allowing us to do things that simply weren't possible at any realistic cost over 'conventional' wire line services. We certainly wouldn't have been able to automate so much of our support and update services nor would we have been able to operate as we do now in Sri Lanka without the functionality of a VoIP 'PABX' and the ability to 'bolt on' Asterisk functionality. At this early stage I expect that HSPA VoIP and SMS will produce similar opportunities for us - if we are skillful enough to program them and then competent enough to make a dent in the corporate attitudes to 'new' functionality that my old friend is having so much trouble with. Trackbacks
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I tend to think of 'SMS' as a legacy technology. I gather that these apps are really instant messaging apps that gateway to SMS. In that case you may as well bypass SMS altogether and go direct. Then customers won't even have to pay for individual messages. Since telcos have been collecting upwards of 20c a piece for SMS, they're obviously not keen on such prospects. Though no matter what they do, give customers HSPA and smartphones and they are going to find their own way of avoiding the hefty fees that telcos have been slugging them with for SMS. Until mobile IM is completely ubiquitous, however, SMS gateways will remain handy for communicating with people using outdated technology.
For companies implementing instant messaging solutions, Jabber/XMPP is well worth considering. That will no doubt be the future of IM, as it's already being used by Google, Apple, etc. Even AOL has experimenting and it is possible they will eventually join their IM service into the Jabber network. In that case, Jabber will instantly jump from being the third biggest IM network to the largest. It is already the most widely deployed, with many different client and server implementations available from a range of vendors. Comments (2)
You are almost certainly correct in terms of the 'near' future.
SMS a 'legacy' technology? At the moment SMS is an established multi-billion a day world wide messaging system used by almost every mobile user on all current handsets. I looked at the projections for SMS while I was in the UK and the forecast growth remains incredibly strong for the next 3 years. Comments (4)
By 'legacy' I mean technology that is superseded by something better regardless of uptake. In any case, if you compare the number of SMS sent versus the number of instant messages sent via the Internet, you'll probably find that SMS gets dwarfed. Thanks to the current pricing model, SMS may be more profitable (though IM adds value to internet connectivity which has no doubt contributed to the uptake of broadband).
None the less, it'd be quite smart for ISPs providing HSPA services to provide customers with an XMPP client for their phone, plus provide an XMPP server with an SMS gateway. It would then be trivial to offer a desktop client for added value. Plus communication to Google Talk (and other Jabber) users would be available by default. Comments (2)
I think there's plenty of room for development in this area, the traditional telcos aren't keen of course to loose their 20c for 1kb of data SMS cash cow, the change will come though and some of the apps that have already emerged are paving the way whether the telcos like it or not, I feel Exetel has an opportunity to develop in this arena as the telco greed factor isn't there, likelwise I feel there's a lot of scope in the Exetel VoIP offer to build it out with features and make it more appealing to a wider audience
Interesting times ahead as the market evolves no doubt Comments (2)
Hi John
I'm quite regularly using VoIP over HSPA using a SoftPhone on a laptop; having yet to invest in a Smartphone. (Unless you class a 15" Toshiba a SmartPhone!) The latency is about 190ms at best, which is OK for VoIP via Exetel. However, there are occasions when it will intermittently stop and start depending on coverage and cell activity at that moment in time; so in a new location I always run a command line ping first to see if the line is stable before making a call. My only concern with VoIP over HSPA is what happens as towers get more subscribers. I don't know if they are able to do any kind of QoS? As Optus takes on more ISPs plus sells ever more connections themselves, I'm a little concerned that the service might become too unstable at a later date, after you (and me as an agent) have already sold many on the idea. Hopefully that doesn't happen or there's some way of ensuring it doesn't happen - don't like the idea of it biting us in the future For the few HSPA setups I've done so far, I've installed X-Lite, and the customers have been very happy with the results As a side note; have you looked into being able to offer wireless landline replacements such as Optus Wireless Telephone? These are enticing simply because they are able to access DID numbers anywhere; whereas you're currently locked into the major centres. (Oh, and also being one in the eye for Telstra!) Cheers, Mike Comment (1)
Thank you for the input Mike.
I don't have a particular concern about Optus not keeping up with upgrading the HSPA infrastructure to meet increasing demand for two reasons: 1) They, and all other mobile carriers around the world, have faced the same problem with mobile telephony usage growth and dealt with it effectively for over a decade. 2) If it ever did happen I would dump Optus in a heartbeat and switch the customers to another Australian carrier. I have already put that 'fall back' position in place. I know nothing about OWT - perhaps you could send me some details? Or post on the Agent Forum? Comments (4)
Mike if you are using the standard X-lite install it will be using G711 codec which is probably not the best for 3G use, if you use the paid version of their softphone you can use G729 which is much more bandwidth friendly
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If you need some testers for the app on Nokia's let me know. At the moment me(Nokia E71) and my partner(Older Nokia 6234) are using the SMS via email to get 5cent exetel texts but this method is awkward at best.
I can't imagine any carrier in Australia actively promoting VOIP or IM as an alternative to mobile calls/sms since these are definitely the big money makers for mobile networks. That's why I think it is awesome that you guys are doing it. Comment (1)
Please email me with contact detais and I'll get David to send you the url for the test versions as they become avaiable.
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