Olympics video headache: you can start panicking now

If you have been in the industry as long as I am, you probably smile fondly every couple of years when vendors are pitching network armageddon because of a specific (usually sporting) event.

"How will you handle the spike and growth from <insert your favourite theme here>":

• Fifa World Cup Finals
• Superbowl
• New year's eve 
• Champions League finals
• Stanley cup's final (this is hockey for those of you unfortunate souls not freezing in Canada)
• New show on Netflix...

In some cases, you might have reacted with an indulgent smile, recognizing the ploy from the vendor to sell more capacity and secure their vacation bonus to the Bahamas on the network upgrade forced on you.

Well... I am getting report of multiple mobile network failures during the olympics as video viewers resorted to their tiny screens to cheer for their favourite team / athletes while at work / in transit / feigning interest in boring conversation with visiting in-laws.

This might be anecdotal, but evidence shows that the variance between average and busy hour in mobile video is higher than in voice, messaging and data services. 

There is a certain amount of predictability to it (it is likely that football fans will try and catch video snippets of their teams if they are not in front of their TV when the game is playing after all), but the fact that this is video has a multiplier effect on the demand.

Because of the voracious character of some of the devices, video players and content providers attitude towards quality, networks get oversubscribed much faster and longer than with other services.

Will network operators start to consider video as a separate service and manage it actively rather than suffer its unpredictable consequences? 

This and more in my new report "mobile video monetization and optimization 2014".

Flash in the cloud

Flash Networks announced today that it is making its Harmony Mobile Internet Services Gateway optimization and monetization solution available in the cloud. The solution that was traditionally deployed in mobile core networks will soon be deployed in private and public clouds.

"Harmony Mobile Internet Services Gateway integrates web and video optimization, analytics, traffic management, web monetization, content control, cell-based congestion awareness, centralized caching, service orchestration, and an intelligent policy engine in a single gateway. "

I spoke today with Merav Bahat, VP Marketing and Business Development at Flash Networks and she adds: "We wanted to introduce the capability for our customers to use cloud services and cloud computing with our platform. Harmony will continue to be deployed in the core networks and in conjunction, can be deployed in private and public clouds. We have been able to duplicate several functions from our platform such as caching, storage and CPU-intensive transcoding and put them in the cloud to offer great additional savings , higher hit rates and enhanced quality of experience".`

As seen here and here, Flash Networks is the third company in the video optimization space who has announced plans to offer a cloud-based solution. Caching, transcoding, content recommendation are some of the services that Flash Networks will perform in the cloud, to benefit carriers with multi-sites or multi-networks footprint.

Cloud-based video optimization is gaining traction, as more and more mobile network operators  see the necessity to deploy video optimization (over 80 have selected vendors to date) but balk at the CAPEX and footprint necessary to enable a good quality of experience.

Cloud deployments and cloud computing were, until recently, seen as an improbable technology to deploy real time video encoding services, but a few tier one operators have tested and are deploying the technology as we speak. It seems that the technology is reaching market validation stage and is getting a much larger acceptance from the carriers' community. It is a good move from Flash Networks to capitalize on this market trend and expand their offering in that space.

Verizon / Redbox: from OTT to IYF, Netflix

I had predicted here  and here that we would soon see OTT offers from traditional MSOs.
Redbox, the DVD and games rental kiosk company with over 28,000 locations had announced, a year ago, that they would be looking for a or several streaming partners.

The search is now over, as Redbox and Verizon partner to deliver movie and TV shows on demand streaming services. Redbox provides the content and rights, while Verizon provides the infrastructure and transport. A neat arrangement, that could put Verizon as a major OTT content distributor in the future.

The OTT part, of course is that the service will be accessible to anyone, Verizon subscriber or not, on multi platforms (smartphones, tablets, PCs, Consoles, connected devices...). Verizon will leverage its VCast and its mobile CDN infrastructure and negotiated rights.

It will be interesting to see how Redbox service complements or competes against VCast and similar offering from Amazon, Hulu +... Of course the fight will really be on with the next Google TV and Apple TV incarnations. In the meantime, Verizon steps boldly in OTT - In Your Face, Netflix

For or against Adaptive Bit Rate? part II: For ABR

As we have seen here, ABR presents some significant improvements on the way video can be delivered in lossy network conditions.
If we take the fragmented MP4 implementation, we can see that the benefits to a network and content provider are significant. The manifest, transmitted at the establishment of the connection between the player and the server describes the video file, its audio counterpart, its encoding and the different streams and bit rates available.

Since the player has access to all this at the establishment of the connection, it has all the data necessary for an informed decision on the best bit rate to select for the delivery of the video. This is important because ABR is the only technology today that gives the device the control over the selection of the version (and therefore quality and cost) of the video to be delivered.
This is crucial, since there is no efficient means today to convey congestion notification from the Radio Access Network through the Core and Backhaul to the content provider.

Video optimization technology is situated in the Core Network and relies on its reading of the state of the TCP connection (% packet loss, jitter, delay...) to deduce the health of the connection and the cell congestion. The problem, is that a degradation of the TCP connection can have many causes beyond payload congestion. The video optimization server can end up taking decisions to degrade or increase video quality based on insufficient observations or assumptions that might end up contributing to congestion rather than assuage it.

ABR, by providing the device with the capability to decide on the bit rate to be delivered, relies on the device's reading of the connection state, rather than an appliance in the core network. Since the video will be played on the device, this the place where the measurement of the connection state is most accurate.

As illustrated below, as the network conditions fluctuate throughout a connection, the device selects the bit rate that is the most appropriate for the stream, jumping between 300, 500 and 700kbps in this example, to follow network condition.

This provides an efficient means to provide the user with an optimal quality, as network conditions fluctuate, while reducing pressure on congested cells, when the connection degrades.

So, with only 4 to 6% of the traffic, why isn't ABR more widely used and why are network operators implementing video optimization solutions in the core network? Will ABR become the standard for delivering video in lossy networks? These questions and more will be answered in the next post.

Pay TV vs OTT part IV: clash of the titans

We have reviewed and discussed at length (here, here, and here) the fundamental changes that OTT is causing to the pay TV market. As consumer electronics vendors become content aggregators and as more screens get now directly connected to the internet, there is less and less value in a set top box that is an exclusive managed device from your MSO.

Service providers themselves are ambivalent about the box. It used to be the main tangible asset that MSOs marketed to "own" a subscriber relationship, with a safe environment allowing transactions, access control and digital rights management to monetize live and on demand programs.
Lately, it has looked increasingly like a ball and chain that MSOs have dragged, a costly installed base, slow to evolve and adapt to the latest technologies, incapable of competing against better services and cost structures evolved from OTT.

Microsoft, in the latest incarnation of its XBox Live service, has brokered deals with several dozens of content providers beyond existing Hulu and Netlix and  is launching today. More interestingly, Verizon FiOS, Comcast Xfinity and HBO are also part of the package... as OTT apps. The XBox is already a high-density, high-performance gaming and multimedia environment to play online games and stream video. Adding live TV and VOD makes sense and makes the set top box completely redundant. Microsoft innovates by integrating Bing, its search engine, the Kinect, its haptic motion recognition device and voice, with the EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) of the programmer. You can literally search y voice for a show, an actor, a director and see the results aggregated on your screen from various sources.

While you still have to be a Comcast or Verizon cable subscriber to avail of the services in the states, the writing (or rather the screen) is on the wall.

This experiment will no doubt cast a new light on the 35 million XBox live accounts, putting Microsoft firmly shoulder to shoulder with Google's TV efforts (and Motorola's set top boxes) and the next generation of Apple TV.


Soon will be a time when subscribers will buy access from their ISP independently from aggregation and content. Channels and MSOs will compete across new geographies on unmanaged devices, across unmanaged networks. New generation of apps will enable you to discover, access and curate content from your local media servers, the cloud and your traditional providers and present the result on the screen you elect. There is no technological or logistical barrier any longer. The business model of pay TV, subscription, advertising is undergoing changes of seismic proportions.

OTT wave hits Canada: BBC iPlayer launches

BBC iPlayer is a popular VOD platform from UK's BBC. It is based on subscription and features long form original and archive TV and radio content. iPAD users can download the free app from the app store and browse limited free content or have access to over 1,500 hours of content on day one with an additional 100 hours every month, updated regularly for $8.99 a month.

Canada is the 16th country invaded by the  iPlayer but the first one where Netflix is present. It is going to be interesting to see how both giants are going to react to each other's strategy, no doubt in a rehearsal of a BBC launch in the US. While Netflix is predominantly about films, BBC iPlayer is a TV content aggregator, spanning radio and TV shows, news , concerts, documentary, comedies and more undefinable British genres like Little Britain.

While the launch is currently limited to iPAD, it should not be longh before it spans iPhones, Android, Wii, PS3 and laptop, as in other markets. BBC iPlayer global is a subset of the UK selection, and will propose only TV content at the start. The genres proposed are Contemporary drama, classic comedy, family & kids, classic &period drama, entertainment, modern comedy, Science & Nature, Sci-Fi, Music & Culture, Crime &Thriler, Lifestyle and News Specials & Documentaries.

BBC does not see itself competing against Hulu or Netflix, arguing that they are specialist, providing carefully curated content, to reflect the "voice of BBC", while other aggregators are more generalist in nature. Netflix tends to agree, citing different demographic target for their users. In September this year, BBC iPlayer served 153 million requests in the UK only, with an average 1.7 million viewer a day and a monthly viewing average of 69 minutes for TV (excl. radio). Numbers for outside the UK are not yet available. Most of iPlayer usage is during TV viewing hours, hinting at strong companion screen trends.


I think it is a strong sign, to start and see niche offers transcend their geographical boundaries to go truly OTT. BBC has found a huge following and not only with Brit expats for its acclaimed shows such as Top gear, Little Britain, etc... The walled gardens are crumbling and consumers are the winners. This tidal wave has a tremendous impact on mobile networks (capacity to accommodate video traffic surge), MSOs and PayTV (where traditional service providers need to find a way to protect VOD revenues and remain relevant), and Consumer Electronics (where CE vendors see themselves becoming content aggregators through app stores and native apps enhancing content discovery and access).

Connexus: Avvasi, BroadHop, CommProve and Spirent Communications

On October 11, Avvasi, BroadHop, CommProve and Spirent Communications announced the creation of Connexus in a press release, an ecosystem for monetizing OTT.

Personally, I am fairly skeptical about the capacity for anyone to monetize free OTT, besides the content owners and aggregators themselves, so I called up Mate Prgin, president and CEO of Avvasi to get a little detail on this new initiative.


"We are all familiar with the take off of video in wireless networks, and how OTT is a large part of this. Optimization techniques have been used today mostly in a defensive manner, to keep costs down and are necessary but really only a band aid.

Today's main issue is is to align revenues with costs. Operator's best asset is the last mile, ensuring connectivity and quality of experience (QOE). It should allow them to monetize this service to announcers and content providers" started Mate.  He agreed, when pressed that in the short term, monetization opportunities will be mostly around premium content and services.

Connexus is an initiative to catalyze and accelerate the process for the creation of a standard that would offer a framework between operators and content owners to trade content delivery revenue vs. QOE guarantees. Last-mile QOE, traffic management, QOE testing, Policy management are all in the scope."This is  not a co-marketing exercise", says Mate. Today, the initiative spearheaded by the 4 founding companies presents blueprint, use cases and roadmap for monetizing OTT, with planned trials and proof of concept early in 2012.


While these documents are available under NDA for these companies' prospects, Connexus is open to new members and is actively talking with 4 new applicants.

While I don't follow 100% some of the premises, I have been a vocal supporter of new standards to be created in the area of traffic management. In my mind, as video becomes business critical and demand outstrips capacity in mobile networks, we need a mechanism to relay congestion and capacity information from the RAN, to the core and the backhaul to enable some meaningful negotiation of network capacity. If in the meantime, it leads to some monetization of the delivery, good for the network operators, but I think we are still very far from the operators being able to guarantee strong SLA-backed QOE to content providers.


This initiative  will need a lot more support from larger names to be effective and provide relevance in the global ecosystem. I also doubt it can succeed without bringing the content owners and aggregators themselves into the discussion. It is a step in the right direction, though and it is good to see companies starting to talk about monetization, rather than savings when it comes to OTT. It will be interesting to follow how operators and large equipment vendors react to Connexus. I am hearing more announcements will follow at Mobile World Congress.

Pay TV vs. OTT part III: CE vendors and companion screens

CE vendors
It is not just the content owners that are going direct to customers, now connected devices vendors offer content directly on their platforms, over the internet.Game platforms have long offered OTT content and are the single major contributors to Hulu's success. Now CE vendors offer OTT apps on their connected TVs, blue ray players, projectors...Samsung, the market leader in TV shipments has created a complete ecosystem, with an app store, a catalogue of pre-integrated OTT apps, some complementary some competitive with service providers. This is offered on their Connected TVs, Blu Ray players, projectors, smart phones, tablets... LG, Panasonic, Philips, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio have now a similar offering.
It will not be long before Google TV's second attempt brings a complete soup to nuts ecosystem as well with set top boxes and  connected TVs running android and a complete TV app store.
I am willing to bet as well that the next Apple TV will actually be a connected TV, not a net box that will be fully integrated with iCloud and iTunes store and Air.

Companion screens

Lastly, on the device front, there is a new trend developing that I will call companion screens. More and more people, while watching TV are  doing something on their tablet, smartphone or laptop that is related to what they are watching. Whether it is chatting, playing, texting, blogging, twitting or posting, these interactions have emerged spontaneously and  are still very much in a separate silo from the TV experience. Most vendors, and service providers are trying to figure out how social media, connected devices and OTT fit together.
I have seen many cross-screen applications and services at IBC last month and I will present a few in my next post about innovations in the Pay TV / OTT space.



In conclusion, the industry is transitioning from a model where Pay TV content was predominantly accessed through managed devices on managed networks, to a model where content and services will predominantly be accessed through unmanaged or hybrid devices, on unmanaged or hybrid networks. This, as you can imagine creates many threats and opportunities for content owners, service providers and device vendors that we will examine in the next post.

Pay TV vs. OTT part II: managed devices and networks vs. OTT

It is really interesting to me to see that as Google acquired Motorola, it has become the market leader in video head end and set top boxes overnight without many hardly noticing. It means in my mind that the previous attempt from Google to invade the pay-TV market will be much stronger the second time around when Google TV will be relaunched.

This market looks just like the mobile market 8 years ago, when device vendors all had proprietary operating systems (this is the case with set top boxes middleware and connected TVs, game consoles, net boxes...) and everyone wanted to "own" the customer.

Managed devices, Managed networks
Pay TV is traditionally delivered through a set top box to a home. Because the set top box has until recently been built upon a service provider specifications,because it was sold, rented or subsidized by the service provider, because the service provider decided what services (PVR, Electronic programming guide, search...) would go into that box, for all these reasons the set top box is seen as a managed device. A managed device runs on a managed network, as opposed to unmanaged network (e.g. the internet).
The network is called managed because the service provider controls the backbone, core and delivery, therefore guaranteeing digital rights integrity to content owners and quality of service to content aggregators and subscribers.

What happened in the last year is that managed devices such as set top boxes have become less and less managed and have offered access to OTT content via the internet. These devices are called hybrid, as they offer both cable/satellite managed services and internet access, together with OTT apps access (Hulu, Netfix...).


Unmanaged devices, OTT

Smartphones, tablets, laptops, game consoles, net boxes, connected TVs have made their appearance.These devices are by definition unmanaged or hybrid, since they are all connected to the internet.

Strategy Analytics predicts that over a billion connected devices will be shipped in the next three years, with managed devices being a very small 20% portion of the total.
This is without counting the billions of smartphone and tablets that will be sold at the same time.

OTT apps are flourishing, offering video content to consumers, without the need for a pay TV subscription, in some cases complementing the current offering (for instance, YouTube fills a need that wasn't properly served by PAY TV services) , in other cases, cannibalizing or replacing traditional Pay TV services (for instance, video on demand from the service provider is seriously threatened by Netflix, Hulu...).
Additionally, the content aggregators whose only channel was TV are now addressing directly the customer through OTT. For instance, HBO, a very successful payTV channel is now offering HBO Go, so that its subscriber can watch live, catch up and on demand programming from connected devices. For the moment, in the US, the consumers have to sign up with Comcast, Time Warner Cable... credentials to get access to the service, so the service provider revenues streams are protected, but nothing prevents HBO to go direct overnight, or to offer its programming outside the US directly to consumers...

We will see in the next post that CE vendors are also joining the fray, and we will examine an interesting new trend: companion screens.

Pay TV vs. OTT part I: the business models

I have been working for the last few months on the Pay TV, OTT and connected TV market. It is a space I find fascinating, with a lot of new trends and activities, very similar to the mobile handset market before the mobile broadband revolution. I figured I would share with you some of my findings about its dynamics and challenges.


Market size and dynamics
 Pay TV

Pay TV is defined as the market space where service providers (Time Warner Cable, Comcast, BBC, Canal Plus, Sky...) sell subscription access to TV content (channels) and services (pay per view, video on demand, electronic programming guide, catch up TV...) to subscribers and advertising to announcers.


TV content is created by studios and content creators and sold to channels and content aggregators.
In 2010, according to Strategy Analytics, it is a market that generated nearly 400 billion dollars globally, about half from advertising and half from subscription and services in 2010. These $400B were split approximately 1/3 to service providers, 1/3 to content aggregators and 1/3 to content owners.


 Over -The-Top

Recently, many content owners and aggregators have surfed on the wave of technological advance spurred by the increase in fixed broadband, mobile consoles, web boxes and connected devices penetration.
These content owners distribute their content on the web, directly to the consumer. Netflix, Hulu, Youtube,  HBO, BBC, NFL, etc... are the better known brands but there are new global and local players diving in every day. 


The fundamental difference in this model, is that the content owner just needs the consumer to have a screen (TV, mobile or PC), a connection (mobile or fixed broadband) and if the screen is not connected, an access gateway (set top box, router, net box, game console) to sell its content and services.
While this market is much smaller  (only about $8 billion in 2010), it is growing fast and threatens the revenue model of Pay TV in the sense that in this model, revenues are split approximately 60/40 respectively between content owners and aggregators. Nothing for service providers!


As you can imagine, the fear from service providers is that OTT starts cannibalizing their legacy revenue, as their current suppliers turn into fierce competition. In the next posts, I will look at the dynamics and competitive field in the ecosystem (devices, operating systems, app stores), as well as new trends in standards and consumer behaviors together with a few vendors and service provider strategies to take advantage of or mitigate these new threats and opportunities.

How to charge for video? part 3 - Pros and Cons

Here are the pros and cons from the methods identified in the previous post.

	Pros	Cons
Unlimited usage	Customer friendly, good for acquisition and churn reduction	Hard to plan network capacity
	Will be a real differentiator in the future	Expensive, if data usage continues doubling on a yearly basis
Fair Limit	Provides some capacity planning	The limit tends to change often, as the ratio of abuser vs. Heavy users goes down.
Hard Cap	No revenue leakage	Not customer friendly
	Easy network planning (max capacity needed = max number of users x caps)	Does not allow to capture additional revenue
Hard cap with overage fee:	Can be very profitable with a population that has frequent overage	Many customers complain of the bill shock.
Soft cap	Customer friendly, easy to understand	Not as profitable in the short term
Soft cap with throttling	A better alternative to hard cap in markets where video usage is not yet very heavy	Becomes less and less customer friendly as video traffic increases
Speed capping	Very effective for charging per type of usage and educating customers	Requires sophisticated network (DPI + Charging + subscriber management)
Application bundling	Popular in mature market with high competition, where subscribers become expert at shopping and comparing the different offerings.	Complex requires sophisticated network, requires good understanding of subscriber demographics and usage to maximize revenue
Metered Usage	Very effective way to ensure that capacity planning and revenue are tied	Not very popular, as many subscribers do not understand Megabytes and how 2 minutes of video could “cost” from 1 to 10 times .
Content based charging	Allow sophisticated tariffing that maximizes revenue	Complex requires sophisticated network, requires good understanding of subscriber demographics and usage to maximize revenue. Technology not quite ready.
Time of day charging	For operators who have a “prime time” effect with peaks an order of magnitude higher than average traffic, an effective way to monetize the need to size for peak.	Not very popular. The network is still underutilized most of the time.
Location based charging	Will allow operators with “hot spots” to try and mitigate usage in these zones or at least to finance capacity.	Most subscribers wont accept having to carry a map to understand how much their call/video will cost them.

As with many trends in wireless, it will take a while before the market matures enough to elaborate a technology and a business model that is both user-friendly and profitable for the operators. Additionally, the emergence of over-the-t0p traffic, with now content providers and aggregators selling their services directly to customers, forces the industry to examine charging and tariffing models in a more fundamental fashion.

Revenue sharing, network sharing, load sharing require traditional core network technologies to be exposed to external entities for a profitable model where brands, content owners, content providers and operators are not at war. New collaboration models need to be thought of. Additionally, while the technology has made much progress, the next generation of DPI, PCRF, OSS/BSS will need to step up to allow for these sophisticated charging models.

How to charge for Video? part 1 - How did we get there?

In January 2009, when Cisco released its first Visual Networking Index, a forecast of data traffic in mobile networks, the first reaction from the market was incredulity.

Cisco was projecting that, based on traffic observed over the last 5 years, mobile data traffic was to double every year. Even more remarkable, video, then a mere 20% of the overall traffic would rise and account up to 64% of the traffic by 2013.

The industry met these projections with raised eyebrows and many dismissed the report as a simple attempt for vendors to sell more network equipment. While the intention behind the report is undoubtedly to bring carriers to the conclusion that they need to strengthen their network and prepare for huge CAPEX spending, the observations remain relevant.

By the summer of 2009, networks started experiencing data outages (AT&T). While the trend seemed to accelerate and spread (Verizon, Sprint, Vodafone Germany, Vodafone UK, O2 UK, Orange UK...), carriers and vendors alike started to look at identifying and defining the issue.

Mobile data indeed was growing fast and video seemed to be a large part of it. Additionally, the outages seemed caused by a variety of factors, from radio access network (signalling) to core (congestion) instability.

It is clear that the massive take-off of smartphones and tablets, coupled with the change in media consumption patterns by mobile subscribers had taken all by surprise.

The main cause, in my mind, for this surge and instability in mobile network traffic is not to be found in the technology but rather in the business model.

At the beginning of 2000, the wireless world is in ebullition. 3G licenses are being sold for Billions (with UK auction the most expensive at £22.4Bn). Wireless operators embark on the promise of wireless internet (WAP) and multimedia messaging. These promises were not delivered on, and many started to look for content and applications to fill their new-found bandwidth.

USB dongles proved popular for the enterprise market, to provide data connectivity on the go. Along that time, flat fee, all-you-can-eat, unlimited data packages start to appear. While there wasn’t that much attractive content available, these plans proved effective in drawing throngs of subscribers and became a weapon of choice in the customer acquisition arsenal.

Fast forward to 2011 - with the rise of social media, the introduction of smartphones and tablets as new categories, the explosion of user-generated-content and the emergence of apps as the preferred way to access or interact with content in the mobile world -  networks find themselves flooded with data usage.

In the next post, I will look at an inventory of existing charging models.

Bytemobile T 3000 series & Unison update

Bytemobile released this week a new platform (T3000) and a new product (T3100).
With more than 40 operator deployments, Bytemobile is the leader in the video optimization market. The new platform is launched to allow Bytemobile to address the intelligent traffic management market .

Mikko Disini, in charge of the new T 3OOO series and Unison platforms discussed with me the rationale behind the introduction of the new product and how it complements Unison.

T3000 series has been created in an effort to provide more monetization options for mobile broadband operators. For those familiar with Unison, which is essentially a web and video proxy and optimization gateway, T3100 expands beyond browsing to proxy and manipulate all traffic, including UDP based applications, P2P, video chat, RTSP, etc..
While Unison remains a software based solution, on off-the-shelf IBM blade center, T3000  series is a purpose built IBM hardware based appliance. T3100 combines load balancing, DPI, PCEF and traffic rules in one package. Bytemobile is planning to introduce new products on the T3000 platform in the future.

Mikko commented that the rationale behind the hardware based approach is to be more channel-friendly. " It is easier to deploy, package, explain, it is an easier sale".

My opinion is that Bytemobile makes a smart move to expand their product portfolio with new verticals. While there is a large level of overlap between Unison and T3100 today, Bytemobile can upsell their installed base with purpose-built solutions. While in the past, Unison was a Swiss Army knife, for a market who was looking for a quick solution, that had a bit of everything, the growth of the traffic is forcing many vendors to separate applications to have more granular scalability.


With T3000, Bytemobile moves more decidedly into the DPI, load balancing, PCEF space than with Unison. Additionally, moving to a hardware appliance model is going to enable them further to resist price erosion, reusing the Unison tactics of bundling several applications and features together with different market prices and models.
What remains to be seen is how effective the strategy is going to be in acquiring new channels, beyond IBM, NSN and TechMahindra now that T3000 is sure to encroach on some bigger players such as F5 and Cisco... or maybe, this is the strategy?

Dear Openwave, Juniper is now partnering with RGB Networks

In a solution brief stealthily released this week, Juniper introduces RGB Networks VMG transcoder product within its Media Flow solution as their partner for adaptive streaming.

This solution brief, centered around mobile video delivery uses a lot of the rhetoric associated with mobile TV and TV everywhere, touting computational performance and low heat dissipation for instance. The solutions seems to be addressed at carriers, content owners, cable operators who want to enable their own mobile CDN, rather than relying on Akamai and Limelight.
It is not surprising since it is, after all, RGB's core competency, to extend professional video encoding from cable to mobile networks. Hardware based, high performance adaptive streaming and its three proprietary flavors (Apple's, Microsoft's and Adobe's) seem to be the core of the solution. That is, until their acquisition of Ripcode last year which yielded, beyond a handful of wireless customers and a software based solution, the embryo of video optimization  technology for OTT traffic.




What I find interesting, is that the same solution from Juniper, Media Flow was supposed to be as well the core of the Openwave - Juniper partnership around video optimization announced at Mobile World Congress this year. 
If you remember the press release at the time, "Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) has selected the Company [Openwave] as a strategic partner to integrate its Media Optimizer into Juniper’s Media Flow solution for mobile video optimization".


We all have seen Openwave's struggle to convince the market that they indeed have technology in this space, after over 30 announced trials and customer engagements and only Wattanya Maldives to show as an announced customer in the space.


At the same time, RGB Networks has made many inroads in licensing and OEMing its technology to core networks, VAS and optimization vendors to perform transcoding, not in the mobile TV/mobile CDN space, but for video optimization. Several vendors in the space have embedded their transcoder in their solution.




Reading between the lines, I can't help but think that Juniper might be thinking of RGB as an anchor technology partner for their Media Flow solution. It makes sense to consolidate both the video delivery for on-deck content announced here with the video optimization for OTT content with a single technology partner. At that point, RGB has a lot more references and technology than Openwave.


 I would not be surprised if Openwave's partnership with Juniper was at its end, whether it will be officially acknowledged or not, only 6 months after its announcement.

Google / Moto: your TV is the next battlefield

Goodbye Moto!

many out there look at Google`s acquisition of Motorola as a defensive step to ward off patent trolls and competitors aggressively pursuing Google and Android licensees. With 17,500 granted patents and another 7,500 filed, there has to be some value from Motorola`s pioneering technology in wireless networks. Whether this is worth $10.5B after the cash retained by Motorola remains to be seen.

While this is undoubtedly a key aspect of the transaction, I would like to look at the impact of this acquisition on the mobile and TV market.

Would Google entertain a rebirth of their handset strategy? While the attractiveness of the Android ecosystem is largely as a means to have a more open alternative to Apple`s iStore, nothing prevents Google to look at a more vertical, better experience on Google devices than on the OEMs. Lets not forget additionally, that part of the transaction is Motorola Set-top-box and connected devices business. Motorola, according to a study published by The Multimedia Research Group is ranked worldwide market leader in Video head-end and set top boxes shipments.

Why is that important? The next battle room for video is your TV screen. According to Strategy Analytics, TV industry generates $392Bn per year in revenue, half from advertising, half from subscription, payTV...
These revenue flows back approximately 1/3 to content owners, 1/3 to aggregators and channels, 1/3 to service providers.

The next frontier in TV, is OTT (Over The Top). In an OTT model, content providers and aggregators share the revenues 50/50, with nothing left for the operators. As Samsung, connected TV market leader, has created their vertical environment, with SmartTV, creating essentially an app store and a suite of apps that can run on their connected TVs, set-top-boxes, tablets and phones, I am willing to bet that we will see an Apple TV pretty soon (not the little box that connects your TV to iTunes, an actual Apple branded TV).

From then on, it is not difficult to see that the next OS and app store battlefield will be in your leaving room.

Will Google revive GoogleTV, with a new Android environment that can be ported by Consumer Electronics (CE) giants on their connected TVs, set-top-boxes, tablets and phones?
Will CE vendors choose to use Android, now that Google is also a competitor, with Moto`s acquisition? Or will they try to emulate Samsung and create their closed ecosystem?


I will examine in future posts some of the defensive strategies operators are putting in place to retain some value in this changing ecosystem.
I don`t know you, but for me, it spells interesting times for the future. Let me know your thoughts....

BBTM Part 3: Openet & Cricket

Openet
 
Michael Manzo's presentation focused around the top techniques and trends to watch for in mobile broadband.
#1: Smarter data service tiers
Add QoS payment scheme to speed and volume, allow users to pay for better access and quality or conversely, zero rate traffic at certain times of day when the network is less congested. It is a good idea, but the practical implementation seems complicated. Self care interface for data usage changes, which will trigger PCRF and Charging gateway, which will trigger in turn DPI and PCEF...


#2 service passes
prepay vouchers for data usage. 15$ for 250MB...
 This is in effect in many operators and has proven effective in term of data ARPU growth.


#3 OTT Content partnership
This is the one, I think that has the most mileage. As posted previously, in my opinion, it is inevitable that carriers will have to partner with Hulu, Youtube, iCloud, Netflix, Bittorrent... I cannot imagine  these OTT vendors seating idle while carriers try to monetize this traffic on their networks and to modify the intended user experience in the process. Again, before revenue share is to happen, QOE sharing is necessary.
Carriers and OTT properties need to compromise on what content and services should get what type of QoS in which circumstances to apportion a fair revenue share.


#4 TV everywhere
Premium content monetization for tablets. VOD everywhere sounds a sexy business model, when mobile broadband allows to share content across TV, Set top boxes, Blu ray players, video game consoles, tablets, laptops and smartphones. As previously discussed, it is a business model that has some way to go to be palatable for mass market.

#5 Fixed Mobile Convergence Parental control
Voice, text and browsing parental control. While I understand the value proposition and in some cases the regulatory constraints, this is the trend I am the most skeptical about. In my experience, trying to enforce parental control on content usage, is a bit like content-based charging. An interesting concept that is too complex to implement with today's technology. I don't think it is technically or logistically viable to maintain white / blacklist of URLs or domains to regulate your child's access to the internet.  The web properties change too fast and your average teenager knows enough about anonimizing and redirecting browsers and apps to circumvent any network based attempt toregulate that usage.



#6 Smarter could service
Expand policy, charging, optimization to the cloud. This will be the subject of a future post.



Cricket Leap
Leap is an interesting carrier, with a very innovative, disruptive positioning that allowed them to garner a very different customer base from the rest of US carriers:
Leap's customer base is in majority young (55% less than 35 year old), cost conscious (medium yearly income is less than $50k), from ethnic descent (60%), and use Cricket phone as their primary phone (95%!).

The key to attracting this demographics has historically been to offer prepaid contracts, with unlimited usage. The result is quite interesting with 5.8m subscribers, generating 2.8B$ revenue.

Their tiered offering using speeds and throttling for mobile broadband has been a staggering success. Today, mobile broadband revenue covers the entire CAPEX and OPEX of the network. Which means voice and text revenues are pure margin...

Going forward, Leap will differentiate further, using QoS and QoE levers to create an even more segmented pricing strategy to mobile broadband users.


On the question of traffic optimization, it is interesting to note that Leap commented "Anytime we implemented optimization techniques in our network, we did not see any negative impact on customer traffic".