Telepresence Basics at NAB2011
Theo Economides, a consultant at Greenline Emeritus Consulting did a wonderful lecture about the basics of Telepresence. Theo talks about the fundamentals of the Telepresence experience, hardware and the industry. You can see it as a 3 part Youtube video in the following links:
* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3

Frost & Sullivan Honors Vidyo with Global 2011 Product Differentiation Excellence Award for Videoconferencing Infrastructure Systems
Vidyo received the  Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Videoconferencing. Frost & Sullivan’s analysis indicates that “Vidyo’s disruptive platform and APIs will expand the market”. I already mentioned that Vidyo is on the right track and as a little example – last week (12-17/09/2011) Vidyo was mentioned over the web almost 273 times, which is more than the term “cisco+telepresence” – 255 times. (data by Viralheat.com).

Source: MarketWatch

AT&T Launched its LTE network today
AT&T Will offer service to up to 15 cities until the end of this year.
Source: AT&T.

Consumers love videoconferencing – but only if it’s free!
Analyst survey shows that interest in video-conferencing drops dramatically when it is priced for more than 5 dollars a month.
Source: fierceenterprisecommunications.com

LTE Rollouts at 3G4G Blog
So how many LTE networks are there? and who was first?
Check the data at 3G4G Blog.

Telepresence for Ocean Exploration
Scientific ocean exploration is both expensive and limited and unless you are one of the top scientists in a relevant field, it is often out of your reach. Students are usually limited to theoretical studies and can’t experience real work in the field before graduation. That’s where Telepresence come into play - EV Nautilus expedition allows both students and viewers at home to watch and communicate with the ship, by watching a 24/7 video coverage of the expedition at http://www.nautiluslive.org. Telepresence becomes more important as an educational tool by providing students access for scientific expeditions that are usually out of reach without it – Students at Collage of Earth Ocean and Environment having access to both Nautilus Live and Okeanos Explorer, gaining invaluable experience while still in school.
Source: University of Delaware Daily.

Facetime – Telepresence for the masses?
It seems that Apple’s Facetime is just about everywhere. Many of my friends use it regularly to talk with their relatives abroad and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear about a bridesmaid attending a wedding via Facetime. Facetime is actually used for many different purposes other than the usual video conferencing activity – there are adult video chatting services and some owners use it as a home monitor system (using a mac and a second apple account). Have any additional use for Facetime? Please drop a line in the comments!

Beyond 4G?
Zahid Ghadialy from 3G4G blog shares an interesting Nokia-Siemens presentation about wireless network predictions for 2020 - apparently, wireless networks latency can be lowered to a mere 1ms, limited only by physical limitations (speed of light):

Source: http://3g4g.blogspot.com/2011/08/2020-radio-and-mobile-broadband-mbb.html

FCC Restarted 180-day clock on the T-Mobile deal approval
FCC restarted the 180-day clock it set to review AT&T takeover of T-Mobile USA. AT&T expect the approval process of FCC and Department of Justice to take about one year.
Source: http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?C=0&ID=467296

4G speed measurement
Bill Moore, CEO of RootMetrics done a speed comparsion between Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T LTE networks.
See the results in the ConnectedPlanetOnline article.

AT&T VP of U-verse & Video Products Interview
FirceTelecom posted an interview with Jeff Weber, VP of U-verse and video products at AT&T.
In the interview Jeff explains why AT&T’s offering for triple service (IPTV, Internet and Voice) proved to be highly successful – a great read in my humble opinion:
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/special-reports/jeff-weber-growth-att-u-verse-and-plug-play-home-networks

FCC Clears 650mhz Spectrum for Rural Connectivity
The Federal Communications Commission announced its decision to free part of the 650MHz spectrum for wireless backhaul. The decision should should help expand network availability in remote/rural areas. More info at http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=8622

Lightsquared Signs a Roaming Agreement with Cleartalk
Lightsquared signs a roaming agreement with Cleartalk, getting one step closer to their LTE network launch:http://mobile.engadget.com/2011/08/08/lightsquared-signs-roaming-agreement-with-cleartalk-thumbs-nose/

Polycom announced the Polycom CX7000 a Microsoft Lync Video Conferencing System
The CX7000 is the one of the first Lync enabled room solutions from Polycom – it contains a high-end camera, a SFF thin-pc (powered by windows 7 embedded), full-dupkex speakerphone and wireless keyboard-mouse set. The CX7000 is a part of the CX series, which is tailored for Microsoft Lync connectivity.
Source: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/polycom/polycom-today-announced-the-polycom.asp

Polycom CX7000

LTE Tablets – it just makes sense
Dan Jones from LightReadingMobile asks – Where are the LTE Tablets?
Dan summarize the expected models to hit the market soon, and theorize about the LTE iPad.

Lifespan of broadband technologies
A&T CEO caught a lot of attention when he said that “DSL is obsolete”. AT&T is one of the major DSL providers and for many US citizens living in rural areas DSL is the only broadband technology available.
AT&T Claims however that the comment was an answer to a question about state regulation and that the lifespan of a broadband technology went down from 10-15 years to about 5 years.
Examples?
3G was introduced around 2006, LTE began gaining momentum this year.
Docsis 2.0 was released in 2001 and Docsis 3.0 in 2006.

Samsung to sell 300 million phones in 2011
Samsung is fighting for the 2nd place in the mobile phone market, and unlike Nokia (that sold 461 million phones in 2010) – it’s major focus is on smart-phones. If they reach their expected number of 60 million smart-phones, they’ll pass Nokia smartphone sales. More on samsung plans and Samsung -vs- Apple -vs- Nokia at Gigaom.

Apple’s iMessage – Will it really change anything?
Rumor says that carriers weren’t informed of one of the latest updates in iOS (the iPhone) announced a month ago – the iMessage.
iMessage allow sending free messages, photos and files between all iDevices, thus posing a risk to traditional messaging with SMS.
SMS devotees will argue about it’s reliability.
Analysts might compare it to BlackBarryMessanger system (BBM) that existed for years and haven’t ‘killed’ SMS yet.
Will it kill SMS? Share your view by leaving a comment down below.

The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) announces successful completion of SuperOp! 2011, the premier testing event of the telecommunications industry for multimedia communication standards and products.

More than 70 engineers from 22 leading multimedia communication companies got together in Waikoloa, Hawaii to participate in week-long interoperability testing exercise.
SuperOp! 2011 testing covered equipment and service interoperability on combinations of IP, 3G and LTE networks, and covered a broad range of technologies such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and IMS, HD Videoconferencing, TIP, Telepresence, HTTP Live Streaming (both Microsoft and Apple varieties) and traditional RTSP Streaming, as well as full spectrum of SIP-based and H.323-based videoconferencing systems.

Highlights of the SuperOp! 2011 include the following:

Activity Group Testing

IMS Activity Group conducted first ever multi-device Voice over LTE (VoLTE) interoperability testing over a live LTE infrastructure. Ericsson, Huawei, Intel Mobile, RADVISION, Samsung and ST Ericsson participated in the testing. Network elements to include LTE enhanced radio access (eNB), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and IMS were provided by Huawei:

Rouzbeh Farhoumand, Sr. Director for Huawei and IMTC Director, next to Huawei LTE Core setup

VoLTE testing at SuperOp! 2011 included LTE voice call establishment, supplementary services (such as OIP, OIR, TIP ,TIR, HOLD and 3-way conferencing) and connectivity to legacy services.

VoLTE testing plan had being developed by the IMS AG which includes AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson AB, Huawei, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Orange-FT, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ST Ericsson.

TIP Activity Group conducted its first ever Interoperability testing event during SuperOp! 2011. Collectively among all participants, about 200 calls had being performed during testing, which was conducted according to the testing plan consisting of more than 100 test cases. Seven companies participated in testing: Acme Packet, AT&T, Cisco, Huawei, Polycom, RADVISION and Teliris. TIP AG Co-Chairs also conducted education workshop on TIP (recording will be available at a later time, please send requests to help@imtc.org). TIP AG participated in SuperConnect (more details below).

SIP Parity Activity Group SuperOp! testing included 22 participating teams from 9 companies (Acme Packet, Bluejeans, Cisco, Huawei, Lifesize, Magor Corporation, Polycom, Radvision, and Vidyo). Interworking among teams was very broad, extending above and beyond that described within the best practice documents. Hundreds of test cases involving thousands of calls were made.

Tested functionality included H.264 HD video (both AVC and SVC), BFCP (using both UDP and TCP) for content sharing, BFCP/H.239 interworking, supplementary services, multipoint calls, security and encryption and more. All companies also participated in the SuperConnect (more details below).

Based on success of SuperOp! testing, SIP Parity Activity Group will present all Best Practices Documents to IMTC Member’s vote to make them official IMTC documents. Following that, Best Practices documents will be made available to all industry participants without IMTC membership requirements. Additional announcements will be made at a later time.

Conferencing over IP Activity Group testing included all the same companies as SIP Parity AG above. Testing had being performed in Ad Hoc mode and included all basic and advanced scenarios for H.323-based videoconferencing.

Packet Switch Streaming Activity Group SuperOp! testing was focused on RTSP basic and advanced functionalities, Apple Live Streaming and MS Smooth streaming. Total number of test cases performed during the week exceeded 1500. Eight companies participated in PSS testing: Alcatel-Lucent, Nexstreaming, NXT, Orange-FT, Packet Video, Qualcomm, Real Networks and Samsung. PSS companies also participated in SuperConnect event.

SVC Activity Group (in process of formation): An information meeting was held during SuperOp! 2011 to consider the formation of an SVC Activity Group. The meeting was well attended, and featured a presentation of a proposed charter by Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis (Vidyo) followed by discussion among the participants. The group intends to harmonize its work with a related activity in UCIF, and focus on H.323 as well as mobile systems. Support for the creation of the group was expressed by Lifesize, Magor, Polycom, RADVISION, Teliris, and Vidyo.

Metadata Activity Group: Metadata AG plans to resume its activities going forward. Dr. Andrea Basso from AT&T presented an update and outlined plans for the group focusing on Video Conferencing and Telepresence Requirements. Informational webinar will be held during month of June/July. Participating member companies: AT&T and Cisco.

Conferencing and Telepresence Interoperability Activity Group also presented an update to the members and plans to conduct information webinar during June/July timeframe. Participating member companies: AT&T and Lifesize.

IMTC SuperConnect 2011

SuperConnect is culmination event of a week-long testing exercise at SuperOp where all available communication equipment is connected together in one big conference call.

More than 50 endpoints participated in SuperConnect 2011. SuperConnect establishment was accomplished inrecord time of less than 20 minutes. For the first time ever, number of SIP connections was equal or exceeding number of H.323 connections. For the first time ever, Telepresence Systems were included into SuperConnect via TIP.

SuperConnect 2011 Network Diagram looked as following (approximated view):

SuperConnect 2011 Conference Call

Here is an output of SuperConnect conference call in various views, including live streaming on mobile device:

Thank You to our Participants and Sponsors

In conclusion, IMTC would like to thank all participants for making the SuperOp! 2011 very successful event and everyone’s contribution into moving the industry forward.

IMTC expresses special gratitude to its SuperOp! 2011 Sponsors: Cisco, Huawei, Polycom, UCIF and Vidyo.

• SuperOP! 2011 event will host an ad-hoc meeting for forming a SVC Activity Group:
  
  SVC has been gaining considerable interest in the video communications industry, with most companies having announced support for it in current or future products. At the same time, there is on-going standardization activity in SVC and related subjects in UCIF as well as the IETF. SVC is currently covered by two standards, the H.264 coding specification and the IETF RTP payload format for SVC (to become RFC 6190). Beyond the SDP offer/answer parameters defined in the payload format, however, it is becoming apparent that the architectural changes made possible by scalable (including simulcast) coding require corresponding signalling support. This meeting will explore these issues and discuss the possibility of creating an SVC AG within IMTC’s Requirements Group to address these new architectures.”
  For more information about SVC & IMTC, please contact: Anatoli Levine (alevine@radvision.com) or Alex Eleftheriadis (alex@vidyo.com).

• IMTC TIP Webinar Since last October IMTC has taken the ownership of TIP (Telepresence Interoperability Protocol). TIP allows immersive multi-screen interoperability across multi-vendor Telepresence systems and is leading Telepresence Interoperability protocol available today in Industry. TIP is now developed IMTC TIP activity group with participation from major Telepresence Vendors. IMTC is hosting a special TIP Webinar at IMTC SuperOp! on May 18^th 3PM- 5PM EST. The Webinar will focus on Technical Overview of TIP Protocol and adoption use cases presented by co-chairs of TIP Activity group from AT&T, Cisco and Polycom. Access to TIP Webinar events is available to all IMTC member companies, and non-member companies interested in adopting TIP for their product and services.Event Access Details:Date & Time – May 18^th 3PM- 5PM EST
  Conference Bridge Details:
  To connect from your desktop, go to http://www.tryscopia.com/scopia?ID=51876&autojoin
  For other options (including connecting with presentation only or watching the webcast), go to http://www.tryscopia.com/scopia?ID=51876
  We recommend you install the desktop client beforehand. To install the client, go to http://www.tryscopia.com/scopia?client
  H.323 dial-in:
  To connect from a video-conferencing device, dial 65.51.241.196
  Phone dial-in:
  To connect from a phone, please dial 201-773-7100 and enter 51876

For further information, question or comments please contact pritchie@inventures.com

AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA
AT&T announced its 39 Billion$ agreement with Deutsche Telekom, in which AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA. AT&T will pay $25B in cash, and $14B in AT&T shares, this makes Deutsche Telekom the largest shareholder in AT&T with 8% of the company stocks. AT&T expect the deal to help deployment of its 4G LTE, with 95 percent of the U.S. population to be covered – an additional 46.5 million people beyond their current 4G deployment plans.

Who owns and uses AWS Spectrum?
WirelessMoves wrote a short post about the AWS spectrum in USA – 45mhz in the 1700mhz range for uplink, and 45mhz for downlink in the 2100mhz range – this range can be used LTE communications. T-Mobile is the only player with both licencing and suitable devices currently – is this the reason for the 95% expected AT&T LTE-coverage mentioned earlier?

UK regulator, Office of Communications, to offer 800mhz and 2.6ghz spectrum for LTE
OFCOM will make an auction for the 800mhz and 2.6ghz bands in second quarter 2012, expecting that operators will start using the spectrum in 2013.
UK is late in LTE deployment as LTE being tested in various European countries and already being used commercially in Germany, Austria, Finland, Denmark and Estonia.

Nortel to sell ‘Legacy’ IPv4 numbers to Microsoft for $7.5Millions
Nortel Networks will sell Microsoft 666,624 IP numbers, from its pool of ‘legacy’ numbers (IP addresses dating back to the early 90′s). In the last years the industry started shifting away from IPV4 to IPV6 in order to combat the problem with limited amount of available addresses in the IPv4 system. Nortel addresses are one of the last batches of avilable IPv4 space, which total in 4.3billion addresses.

IMTC CTO Roundtable
We began uploading our CTO Roundable content – All presentations are available via IMTC Slideshare account. Movies to be added soon – Stay tuned!

If you are puzzled by the title, don’t be – it will all make sense along the way, I promise. The post might be a bit long, but it will be easy to read.

Last week, IMTC conducted its first ever CTO Roundtable. IMTC is really an engineering consortium, so the idea of bringing together a group of people defining today’s and tomorrow’s communication technology and solutions was brewing for a some time.

However, it is not enough to bring together technologists to talk about their favorite subject (as to putting more and better bits on the wire) – all is great in a simple world. We (IMTC member companies) are developing communication technologies and then there are people who are actually using them every day – and it would be great to hear from them, our users. And to keep us all honest and focused, we invited analysts to lead the discussions.

So we actually managed to do it. About 50 people got together in the room at AT&T offices in Middletown, New Jersey, on March 8 and 9 – CTOs, Product people, our users and analysts. Then we heard about great promise of the technology, and we heard about pain (often unexpected) it causes to those who have to put it together and make it useful. Need example? How about 700 conference rooms, fully equipped with video conferencing equipment and literally not being used in years?

We found that our industry is polluted. Polluted with free radicals. One of the analysts, David Yedwab, compiler together a list of issues rose during presentations – words ending with “ion” = free radicals. Same as free radicals in our bodies, they are doing destructive work and should be contained and put under control. Curios? Here is the list:

This blog post is too short to discuss all of the issues. However, if we can focus for a moment on just one of them, it was my personal revelation to see that one of the biggest obstacles in making video communications useful in enterprise is … Calendar, or in the other words, scheduling of the resources need  to conduct successful communication session! It is a problem in the big organization to be able to schedule (time to invent a word for another free radical: Schedulization) a video conference call and request and allocate all logistical resources with one simple click of a button.

Had being involved with IMTC and video communication industry for almost 13 years now, I’m definitely glad to note that we’ve grown up immensely. There was no talk about bad quality of the audio and video being a show stopper. We mastered the basics, and it is time to move up to the next level, and let all the technology work together – and be headache-free to use. We managed to identify the issues – we need to move forward to solve them, one issue at a time. IMTC will work on it, but consider this an open call to action – it is the time to join IMTC and be the part of the solution…

LG Revolution – A welcomed revolution
LG Revolution mobile phone to be the first mobile phone on Verizon to support VoLTE calls and LTE fast data transfer simultaneously -  A major milestone toward the adoption of VoLTE phones. Verizon plans to support VoLTE in summer 2012, AT&T VoLTE support will only arrive at 2013.

But why VoLTE is that important?

* All IP communication will make Unified Communication with mobile devices much easier, mobile software will be able to use voice-calls more easily.
* As suggested by Tsahi Levent-Levi, IMTC IMS Co-Chair - Video Calling!

Telepresence Interoperability,
Hit the news with Polycom’s announcement about TIP support. There are however respected industry-professionals who believe that TIP isn’t the end to all Telepresence problems – and it isn’t, it’s an on-going effort.
Jessica Scarpati from “searchunifiedcommunications.com” wrote an in-depth article about the need for multi-stream telepresence standard for fully inter-operable Telepresence systems.

VIdyo Cloud
Vidyo keeps pushing forward their Video Routers, enabling low-cost high quality HDVC over non-managed networks –  At mobile world congres Vidyo demonstrated its products over LTE connections and multiple mobile devices. The world (and Vidyo, I assume) now waits to see how successful the rumored iPad 2 with a front facing camera will turn up.

Register Here

IMTC has scheduled its first ever CTO Technology Session on March 8-9, 2011 at the AT&T Offices in Middletown, New Jersey. This is a forward looking session that will provide you will analyst information of the key technologies, markets and growth rates for UC, Video and Collaboration solutions. It is also intended, that the group will look at how all these technologies come together with a seamless, interoperable solution.

Historically IMTC has been at the center of communication industry technology changes as noted by our work with H.323, H.264, SIP Parity, IMS, T120, H.320 and PSS, 3G-324M, and other profiles for standard telephony protocols. Communications industry is changing rapidly, and IMTC is helping its members to embrace the change.

In addition to Keynote Speakers from AT&T, Cisco and Polycom, below is a list of confirmed speakers:

Confirmed Speakers:

• Ronald Gruia, Principal Analyst ~ Frost & Sullivan
• Phil Karcher, Principal Analyst ~ Forrester Research
• Ginger Arnold, Manager, LMAC IT Infrastructure & Operations ~ Liberty Mutual
• Russ Cary, Senior IT Manager ~ SAS Global Communications Services
• Phil Edholm, VP Technology Strategy & Innovation ~ Avaya
• Casey King, CTO ~ LifeSize  Communications

The IMTC is pleased to invite all IMTC member companies to this FREE event.  We’ll strive to provide you with information and answers to the following questions:

1. What is the current state of the communications industry?

2. What defines video communications today (Skype, Google, Apple, H.323 and SIP) and how it plays into Unified Communications?

3. How do these various video and unified communication solutions come together into a seamless cloud or enterprise implementation?

4. Where should your company spend its resources in order to solve our customers key pain points?

5. What are the key enterprise customer use cases?

6. Where do telepresence solutions fit?

7. What do I need to know about SVC? How does it impact the above?

8. What are the key dependencies impeding interoperability between equipment, network and cloud services?

9. What is the role of devices such as tablets and smart phones in the unified communication mix and specifically with video communications and how do they affect enterprise implementations?

Together with our member companies, the IMTC would like to build a roadmap of key industry technology initiatives to be addressed in order for the seamless communications cloud to work.

This IMTC event is closed to only IMTC member companies. You can send as many representatives from a member company as you like, however we encourage you to invite senior product management and CTO types of individuals.

Venue:

AT&T Offices
200 Laurel Avenue South
Middletown, New Jersey 07748

Closest Airport:

EWR (Newark)

Nearby Hotels:

http://www.research.att.com/evergreen/about_us/middletown_hotels.html

Register Here:
http://www.regonline.com/imtcctoroundtable