Originally posted on 25Jun10 to IBM Developerworks (8,988 Views)
Wow!
In just five months, Bharti Airtel’s App store has had over 13 Million downloads. What a terrific example of a Telco App Store in action and (presumably) making money for the Telco. This article came across my screen this afternoon and given my previous posts about Bharti’s App Store and carriers wanting to get into them (something I’ve seen all over Asia) to try and arrest some of the revenue bleeding to Apple (and to a lesser extent Google, Nokia and RIM) through single brand (phone) app stores.
The article is really brief, barely a footnote, but it does lay out some interesting facts:
13 Million downloads since Feb ’10
Over 71,00 Applications available, up from 1250 at launch
Support for 780 different devices
1.2 downloads per second
I guess having over 200 Million subscribers does help achieve these sorts of numbers 🙂 . I have some a bit of background about Airtel’s App Central store and the technology it uses, much of it IBM technology. IBM Portal and Mobile Portal Accelerator are used to drive the interface which is able to support over 8,000 different devices from iPhones to WebTVs (remember them? They seem to be making a bit of a comeback at the moment) and everything in-between. These screen dumps are from their old mobile site – I will post some new ones if I can get them soon.
Originally posted on 15Jun10 to IBM Developerworks (11,653 Views)
Nokia e71 making a video call
Since I penned my last post, I have done some more reading on Facetime and watch Steve Job’s launch of Facetime. While I will happily admit that Apple have in fact used some standards within their Facetime Technology (Jobs lists H.264, AAC, SIP, STUN, TURN, ICE, RTP, SRTP as all being used), I am somewhat bemused by the “standards” discussion that most of the media seem to be focusing on with regard to Facetime. Almost everyone that refers to compliance with standards is talking about interoperability with current PC based video chat capabilities – from the likes of Skype, MS Messenger, GTalk and others. Am I the only one that has noticed the iPhone 4 is not a PC and is in fact a mobile phone? Why is it that no one else is questioning interoperability with existing video chat capable mobile phones?
After thinking on this for a little while, I guess it might be that most of the media coverage about the iPhone 4 is coming from the USA – where is was launched. It’s only natural. The problem with the US telecoms market is that it is not representative of the rest of the world – who has had video calling for ages and don’t really use it. Perhaps it was the overflowing Apple coolaid fountain in the iPhone 4 launch that got the audience clapping when Jobs placed a video call, or perhaps it was just that they had never seen a video call before – I wasn’t there so I cant be sure. Right now, the Facetime capability on the iPhone 4 is only for WiFi connections – which makes it pretty limiting. Apparently, there is no setup required, no buddylist, you just use the phone number to make a video call – which is the way video calling already works (see the screen dump of my phone to the right and the short video below), but the WiFi limitation on the iPhone 4 will mean that you have to guess when the recipient is WiFi connected. At least with the standard 3GPP video call, the networks are ubiquitous enough to pretty much guarantee that if the recipient is connected to a network, they can receive a video or at least a phone call. Job’s didn’t explain what would happen if the recipient was not WiFi connected – does it just make a voice call instead? I hope so.
(Note: the original post had a flash video of a video call conducted from my Nokia e71 phone – I’m trying to find the original recording of the call (3GVideoCall/3GVideoCall_controller.swf) and I’ll update this post if I can find it)
If you look at the pixelation and general poor quality of the video call, consider that I am in a UMTS coverage area, not HSPA (the phone would indicate 3.5G if I were), so this is what was available more than seven years ago in Australia, longer in other countries. If I was in a HSDPA coverage area, I would expect the video call to be higher quality due to the increase bandwidth available.
I recall in 2003, Hutchison 3 launched their 3G network in Australia with much fan-fair. Video calls was a key part of the 3G launch in Australia for all of the telcos. This article from the 14Apr03 Sydney Morning Herald (on day before the first official 3G network in Australia) illustrates what I am talking about. The authors say that the network’s “…main feature is that it makes video calling possible via mobile phone.” Think about it for a second. That’s from more than seven years ago and Australia was far from the first country to get a 3G network. A lifetime in today’s technology evolution. Still the crowds clapped and cheered as Jobs made a Video call. If I had have been in the audience, I think I would have yawned at that point.
The other interesting thing that I noticed in job’s speech as his swipe at the Telcos. He implied that they needed to get their networks in order to support video calls. Evidence from the rest of the world would suggest that is not the case – perhaps it is in the USA, or perhaps he is trying to deflect blame for not allowing Facetime over 3G connections away from Apple and back to the likes of AT&T who have copped a lot of flack over their alleged influence on Apple’s Application store policies involving applications that could be seen to be competitive with services from AT&T. I am not sure how much stick AT&T deserve on that front, but it’s pretty obvious from job’s comment that he is not in love with carriers – and certainly from what I’ve seen, carriers are not in love with Apple. It might be interesting to see how long the relationship lasts. My guess is that as long as Apple devices continue to be popular, both parties will be forced to share the same bed.
On another related point, I have been searching the Internet to find what standards body Apple submitted Facetime to for certification – Jobs says in the launch that it will be done “tomorrow” – this could be marketing speak for ‘in the future’ or it could literally mean the day after he launched the iPhone 4. If anyone knows please let me know – I want to have a look into the way Facetime works.
Thanks very much to my colleague Geoff Nicholls for taking the Video Call in the video above.
I came across this article today – Apple wanting to propose their new Facetime technology for video chat now that they finally have a camera on the front of their iPhone 4. I’m now on my second phone with a camera on the surface of the phone (that’s at least four years that my phones have had video chat capabilities) which has not proved to be much more than a curiosity where Telcos have launched it around the world. I recall the first 3G network launch in Australia – for Hutchinson’s ‘3’ network – video chat was seen as the next big thing – the killer application, yet apart from featuring in some reality shows on the TV, very few people used it. I wonder why Steve Jobs thinks this will be any different. At least the video chat capabilities that are in the market already have a standard that they comply with which means that on my Nokia phone, I can have a video call with someone on a (say) Motorola phone. With Apple’s Facetime, it’s only iPhones 4 to iPhone 4 (which does not support a 4G network like LTE or WiMax I hasten to add). If Apple really is worried about standards as the Computerworld article suggests, then I have to ask why doesn’t Apple make their software comply with existing 3GPP Video call standards instead of ‘inventing their own’. If Apple were truly concerned about interoperability, that would have been a more sensible path.
According to Wikipedia, in Q2 2007 there were “… over 131 million UMTS users (and hence potential videophone users), on 134 networks in 59 countries.”. Today, in 2010, I would feel very confident in doubling those figures given the rate at which UMTS networks (and more latterly, HSPA networks) have been deployed throughout the world. Of note is that the Chinese 3G standard (TD-SCDMA) also supports the same video call standard protocol. That protocol (3G-324M – See this article from commdesign.com for a great explanation of the protocol and it’s history – from way back in 2003!) has been around for a while and yes, it was developed because the original UMTS networks couldn’t support IPv6 or the low latency connectivity to provide a good quality video call over a purely IP infrastructure. But, things have changed with LTE gathering steam all around the world (110 telcos across 48 countries according to 3GPP) and mobile WiMax being deployed in the USA by Sprint and at a few other locations around the world (See WiMax Forum’s April 2010 report – note that the majority of these WiMax deployments are not for mobile WiMax and as far as I know, Sprint are the first to be actively deploying WiMax enabled mobile phones as opposed to mobile broadband USB modems) so, perhaps it is time to revisit those video calling standards and update them with something that can take advantage of these faster networks. I think that would be a valid thing to do right now. If it were up to me, I would be looking at SIP based solutions and learning from the success that companies like Skype have had with their video calling (albeit only on PCs and with proprietary technology) – wouldn’t it be great if you could video call anyone from any device? I guess the thing that annoys me most about Apple’s arrogance is to ignore the prior work in the field. Wouldn’t it be better to make Facetime compatible with the hundreds of millions of handsets already deployed rather than introduce yet another incompatible technology and proclaim it as “… going to be a standard”.
Oroiginally posted on 29May10 to IBM Developerworks (23,580 Views)
Yes, I should have posted this a week ago during the TeleManagement World conference – I’ve been busy since then and the wireless network at the conference was not available in most of the session rooms – at least that is my excuse.
Ricardo Mata, Sub-Director, VertICE (OSS) Project from ICE
At Impact 2010 in Las Vegas we heard from the IBM Business Partner (GBM) on the ICE project. At TMW 2010, it was ICE themselves presenting on ICE and their journey down the TeleManagement Forum Frameworx path. Ricardo Mata, Sub-Director, VertICE (OSS) Project from ICE presented (see his picture to the right) presented on ICE’s projects to move Costa Rica’s legacy carrier to a position that will allow them to remain competitive when the government opens up the market to international competitors such as Telefonica who are champing at the bit to get in there. ICE used IBM’s middleware to integrate components from a range of vendors and align them to the TeleManagement Forum’s Frameworx (the new name for eTOM, TAM and SID). In terms of what ICE wanted to achieve with this project (they call it PESSO) this diagram shows it really well.
I wish I could share with you the entire slide pack, but I think I might incur the wrath of the TeleManagement Forum if I were to do that. If you want to see these great presentations from Telcos from all around the world, you will just have to stump up the cash and get yourself to Nice next year. Finally, I want to illustrate the integration architecture that ICE used – this diagram is similar to the one form Impact, but I think importantly shows ICE’s view of the architecture rather than IBM’s or GMB’s.
For the benefit of those that don’t understand some of the acronyms in the architecture diagram above, let me explain them a bit:
ESB – Enterprise Services Bus
TOCP – Telecom Operations Content Pack (the old name for WebSphere Telecom Content Pack) – IBM’s product to help Telcos get in line with the TMF Frameworx)
NGOSS – Next Generation Operations Support Systems (the old name to TMF Frameworx)
Originally posted on 29May10 to IBM Developerworks ( 11,490 Views)
Here is the URL for this bookmark: http://apcmag.com/telstra-to-block-ipad-micro-sims-in-other-devices.htm Interesting… in the rest of the world (and as I heard repeatedly last week at TeleManagement World in Nice, France) Telcos are suffering from all you can eat plans – particularly plans for devices like the iPhone which encourages users to be online all the time and to consume rich media like movies. I heard from a number of Telcos that teenagers are preferring to watch movies on their iPhones in their bedrooms rather than in the lounge room on the normal TV (not that they can always get access tot he same movies on the TV) – surely a larger screen will encourage more of that sort of behaviour. This is driving too much traffic on Telcos 3G networks with flat rate plans. Optus have also announced a similar all you can eat plan for their iPads.
At almost the same time, both Optus and VHA (Vodafone Hutchison Australia) have offered unlimited 3G plans for just AU$50. It makes me wonder if these Telcos in Australia are listening to other Telcos around the world. There’s been a lot of press about AT&T’s network problems associated with iPhone users. I know the world would be a perfect place if we learnt from everyone else’s mistakes, but come on – you don’t need to be a genius to see how this could damage their business. I guess they see this as a competitive pressure – if their rivals do it, then they have to as well – I had hoped that the Australian Telcos would be (jointly) a bit more sensible about it.
I do not have any Apple products and I’ll admit to a bit of jealousy at an all you can eat plan for only AU$50 when I get about 1 Gb for a similar amount on my Nokia e71 – it doesn’t seem fair that I get so much less for similar money on the same network – just because of the device I choose to use…
Originally posted on 19May10 to IBM Developerworks (9,827 Views)
While IBM missed out on winning the TeleManagement Excellence awards this year (congratulations to those four competition winners (see the winners on the TMF web site) we do have a great stand with multiple demos (I haven’t counted, but I think there are six demos) and a small meeting area. Check out the photos below:
Originally posted on 19May10 to IBM Developerworks (9,582 Views)
TeleManagement World conference, 2010. Nice France.
Keynote Speaker
Lui Aili, Board Director for China Mobile
Lui Aili, Board Director for China Mobile presented this morning at the TeleManagement World conference in Nice, France. Mr Lui spoke of China mobile’s challenges. For them, Internet based competitors posed a real threat, despite the size of China Mobile (more than 528 million subscribers) they see companies like Google (with GTalk) and Skype, but also device manufacturers such as Apple and Nokia as providing on device applications and value added services on their own devices which reduces China Mobiles function down to a bit carrier. As Mr Lui put it, these companies “moved our cheese” 😉
For China Mobile, to compete with these Internet based companies, they needed to radically reduce their costs – to do this, they started a project about six years ago to move to an all IP network from their existing legacy network. This architectural move reduced their Capex by a massive 68%. The reduction was through reduced administration and management costs (by re-organising their operational management system and spreading it across all of their IP networks)
Strategy for IP transformation
China Mobile’s network services are predominantly occupied by low value services – straight 2G services. They undertook a detailed analysis to look at network utilisation and management tools to better manage their network and control the customer experience. For them, ALL IP is not the same as All-in-one IP. they are separating their IP customers into high and low value services with security barriers in place – they have a separate virtual network for high value services and for low value standard services. He did not state it directly, but I took it to mean that they have different Service Level Agreements (SLAs) associated with the high and low value services.
From a network administration perspective, they have implemented network management agents at as many points as possible – including every router to enable efficient and rapid fault discovery and correction.
For China Mobile, IP skill levels among their staff was a key success factor – Mr Lui spoke of it multiple times, including implementing comprehensive training schemes for their staff.
“IP Transformation has been a huge task… the job is fare from finished” Mr Lui said. Despite this, he also said that right now, almost all of their voice traffic is already carried over their IP infrastructure In summary, Mr Lui made the following points:
IP transformation simplifies the network, but males O&M more complex. .
Operators must invest in OSS systems to make IP networks and transformation more efficient.
Originally posted on 06May10 to IBM Developerworks (16,509 Views)
ICE present at Impact’10
In Costa Rica, the government owned telco – ICE is being forced to open up it’s market to competitors because of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that Costa Rica has joined. This represented a huge change for ICE who were a Power and Communications provider, without a competitor in their market, they didn’t have any competitive forces to push them to modernise their systems and processes. For instance, fulfilment of basic services took weeks as a result.
GBM, an IBM business partner and IBM Software group proposed to ICE that they base their new OSS/BSS architecture on the TeleManagement Forum’s Frameworx (eTOM, TAM, SID, TNA) – for which they used the WebSphere Telecom Content Pack and IBM Dynamic Process Edition to ensure ICE would have the standards compliance and dynamic BPM capabilities. By using WTCP and DPE, ICE reduced the effort required to build and deploy their new processes by an estimated 20-50%. A fundamental principle of Dynamic BPM is the Business Services layer which sits on top of the BPM layer which in turn sits on the SOA layer. A Business Service is abstracted up from the physical process. For instance, a business service might be ‘Check Technical Availability’ which would apply regardless of the service you are talking about – mobile, POTS or xDSL. These business services are defined within the Telecom Content Pack which enables system integrators like GBM to accelerate the architecture work on projects like this one for ICE.
GBM made use of IBM’s Rapid Delivery Environment (RDE) – where they sent a number of their architects to the IBM Telecom Solution Lab in Austin, Texas for six weeks to conduct a proof of concept and to learn how to apply WTCP to a real customer situation such as that faced by ICE. The RDE allowed GBM to work with the IBM experts to build the first few scenarios so that GBM could continue the work locally in Costa Rica without a lot of assistance from IBM. The other benefit of using the RDE is to get access to the eTOM level 4,5 and 6 assets – the connections to the physical systems that the RDE has previously developed. For instance, the connection to Oracle Infranet Billing engine which can then be reused by other customers who also engage with the RDE.
GBM and ICE have not yet been able to measure that acceleration that WTCP and DPE provided, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it was significant. In preparation for CAFTA, ICE have already launched a 3G network and are preparing to launch pre-paid services in preparation to compete with several new operators that will enter the market this year.
Originally poster on 05May10 to IBM Developerworks (16,501 Views)
AT&T are part way through a major SOA/BPM project which if you know a little about their history* must be an enormous task. They are introducing modelling tools and reverse modelling their existing systems as well as using a tool from iRise to prototype the user interfaces and reduce the risk of not hitting the business requirements.
They have deployed Rational Requisite Pro to capture requirements without the need to get users away from their beloved MS Word. In the last five months, their requirements have gone from 15,000 requirements registered in January to over 30,000 now. Certainly illustrates the traction that they are achieving with their business people. Users access Req Pro via Citrix sessions and the tools are available to thousands of business users.
AT&T are also exposing WebSphere Business Modeler and iRise to a smaller set of subject matter expert users – building a Centre of Excellence in UI design and Process Modelling. So far, they have modelled over 800 process flows base on eTOM models which have been extended to meet their specific requirements. All of these are stored within a common Rational Asset Manager instance which helps their business analysts to improve asst use and reuse.
Those process models feed directly into the model driven development method which is aligned with the requirements and process models. That MDD method uses WebSphere Integration Developer(WID), Rational Software Architect (RSA) for development and WebSphere Process Server (WPS) runtime. WebShere Business Modeler and WebShere Services Registry and Repository (WSRR) in support of the runtime. IBM GBS have put in place processes to support AT&T’s development life cycle and governance requirements.
Key success factors that AT&T see include:
Solve Critical Business Problems
Win over senior Exec support
Achieve Business Partner Alignment
Integrated Tools Approach
Organisational transformation
Infrastructure investment
Communicate, communicate, communicate!
* AT&T have been through multiple de-mergers and mergers and acquisitions over the past 10 years resulting in a hugely complex IT environment.
Originally posted on 05May10 to IBM Developerworks (10,946 Views)
I have just seen Amy Wohl of Amy D Wohl Opinions present on Cloud computing, she was going through the various cloud models and spoke about Community Clouds. What she means by that is multiple community focused clouds as part of a larger (private) cloud. An example of that is the Vietnam Government that bought an IBM Cloudburst to provide multiple virtual private clouds to small businesses in Vietnam so that they can have access to computing power that they otherwise now be able to afford. For Telcos, this could be an offering to their local community groups – perhaps a local schools, bar, sporting clubs, service clubs etc but also potentially for commercial organisations – perhaps to small businesses.
She also made the interesting point that (in her opinion) we are too early in the cloud evolution to actually define standards. She believes that any standards set now would stifle innovation in cloud technology and interoperability. I was interested to hear about this since I attended a web conference call a few weeks ago run by the TeleManagement Forum’s effort to create standards around clouds, particularly For Enterprise use rather than public clouds. I guess the Enterprise cloud market is the most likely type of cloud user that will need interoperability first, thus the emphasis on standards.
John Falkl from IBM
Amy co-presented with John Falkl from IBM who discussed BPM within the cloud. Given BPM is a business function, items subjects such as Security are usually one of the biggest hurdles for Cloud Services. There are multiple factors that fall under the title of ‘security’ such as encryption, roles, authentication (especially when using federates or external authentication services), legal data protection requirements and authorisations. John also pointed out a number of considerations that should be considered in enterprise cloud services including Governance models (which he sees as an extension to normal enterprise governance models). John’s view of standards for Cloud services is that it will most likely start with Web Services standards such as WS-Provisioning and mentioned that there were multiple efforts around cloud standards. I might see if I can have a chat to both John and Amy after the session to get their views on the TMF’s efforts around cloud standards. If that discussion is interesting, I will report back.
Amy made a really interesting point during the Q&A – she said that when she was at Microsoft a few weeks ago and asked about transactional activity in their cloud – they said that MS could not do it…. Very interesting especially when you consider that transactional integrity is a core capability on IBM’s cloud capability.
<edit> I asked Amy about the TMF Cloud standardisation – she hadn’t heard about it, but did say that she thought that TMF’s approach was right – asking the enterprise customers to specify their requirements – she also thought they were probably the right place to start for any cloud standards too. </edit>
