General Motors to use Google Apps
General Motors is considering Google as its supplier of mail and collaboration services. While that’s not a purely telecom related news, it shows the increasing adoption of Cloud services, SaaS and SMB oriented technologies in large companies. Are we getting closer to the day that Skype will replace corporate soft-phones/video endpoints?
Industry News Summary – Google and GM, LTE, Mobile apps and more
November 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
Industry News Summary – VoIP & Baseband, VoLTE & IR.92, Skype Facebook & Google Plus
July 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The unspoken truth of VoIP – The Move Away from the Baseband
Martin Sauter from the blog “WirelessMoves” mention an often forgotten fact regarding VoIP on mobile phones – Today’s circuit switched calls are done via the Baseband radio chip, while future VoIP calls (be it Skype or VoLTE) might be done via applications, whether as plugins or as a part of the OS. This might affect power requirements from the phone. For the post, please click here.
FWIC Conference
Zahid Ghadialy from 3G4G Blog posted his summary from the ‘The Future of Wireless International Conference’. Head to his blog for the post: 3G4G Blog.
Skype, Facebook, Google Plus and Videoconferencing
In the midst of the buzz (no pun intended) around Google+, one might forget it’s unique multimedia feature – multi-party video conferencing. But Google Plus isn’t the only social network to offer video-chat: Facebook has partnered with Skype to launch video chat feature, and although it’s one on one chat – It shows us the way the wind blows. Only time will tell if software-only vendors has something to worry about…
For more information go to FierceEnterprise.
GSMA PRD IR.92
I have received questions regarding the VoLTE architecture and GSMA IR.92 specs so for the benefit of all who are interested – Here is the document:
Industry News – Umi Interop, RCS-e, Skype & Panasonic and more
March 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Cisco Umi Interoperability
Cisco announced that it’s Home Telepresence offering – Umi, will be interoperatable with ‘Umi-Connect‘ – A umi software client for Mac and PC and Cisco’s professional Telepresence systems.
This announcement puts Umi in a whole different perspective, as Umi can now be used for business purposes, i.e – home workers.
In addition, Cisco revelaed a new 720P only version, for a cheaper $399 price and lowered the monthly fee (for a yearly plan) to 9.95$ a month from 24.99$ a month.
Lack of interoperability and high ownership cost were major points of criticism when Cisco introduce Umi and it remains to be seen how this latest move will improve Umi acceptance in home and SOHO markets.
3G4G blog posted a short article about RCS (or in it’s latest form – RCS-e)
The article gives a good overview of what RCS is, and is a recommended read. Back in July 2010 we interviewed Jose M.Recio from Solaimes about RCS and it’s relevancy in the age of the smartphone – As it seems, it’s still is.
Panasonic Viera Blu-ray players to include Skype
Panasonic announced Skype support for it’s new blu-ray player line (2011). Video-Chat will be supported via the Freetalk Conference Camera, which will cost 99$ and be available starting this month.
Spectrume Reform Legistlation
US Senators Olympia Snowe and John Kerry recently introduced the Reforming Airwaves by Developing Incentives and Opportunistic Sharing (RADIOS) Act. The proposed RADIOS Act aims to provide FCC and NTIA detailed information needed for smarter allocation of the Radio spectrum.
LTE sprint
Spirt is one of the few operators in USA that use CDMA for voice and data connectivity – Steve Elfman, Sprint’s president of network operations said that the company will make a decision regarding LTE in mid-year, however if Sprint does decide to use LTE it could be deployed by year-end 2013.
Weekly Industry News – TIP, Polycom, Skype, Facebook
February 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Polycom announce support for TIP
Polycom Inc. announced future support for the Telepresence Interoperability Protocol:
IMTC TIP protocol was developed by Cisco to enable multiscreen interoperability with multi-vendor Telepresence systems. Polycom MCU – “UC Intelligent Core Platform” will support TIP from Q2 2011.
More about TIP in our special TIP Hub : http://blog.imtc.org/index.php/tip
Tip Webinar Recording
For those of you that missed the first Telepresence Interoperability Protocol Webinar, here is the full recording:
We thank David Benham from Cisco, for the help with the editing and distribution.
Skype Easter-egg allows easy setup of multi-party calls
Skype hidden feature creates URL links for Multi-Party calls invitations – In order to create a URL link for a multi-party call, type “/” from the group chat window. The result will be a URL link directing to the call – for more details, check VoiceOnTheWeb Article.
Telstra CTO calls Femtocell ‘A Dumb Idea”
In Mobile World Congress 2011, Hugh Bradlaw talked about his views on Femtocells – “Femtocells — I usually classify these in the dumb-idea-of-the-week category.” He said that Femtocells are an ‘Admission of Defeat’ and that LTE isn’t the end of all capacity problems – QOS is.
Facebook on SIM?
While smartphones slowly becoming a norm for cellular phones, less capable devices are still the most common form – And while facebook have about 500million user-base, less than half of it has smartphones that enable web/application access to facebook.
Gemalto, the world largest SIM manafucture, announced the development of a SIM facebook client, that will support just about every type of sim-based mobile phone.
Interactions with Facebook (statuses, friend requests, etc.) will be sent as Class 2 SMS data. Read more about it at 3G4G Blog.
Industry News Summary – Home Telepresence, Mobile
October 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Home Telepresence
The term “Home Telepresence” was practically coined this week, by Cisco – but they are not the only one to play this game. Cisco’s offering Umi (Pronounced yoo-me) include 1080p video communication, pan-tilt camera that sits on top of a HDTV set – and when used with a proper high bandwidth connection (3.5mbps) it does offer quality previously seen only in High-End Telepresence systems. However in a price of 599$ and 30$ subscription fee and availability of home connections with 3.5mbps upload rate – I’ts hardly a mass-market product. TMC-net even went further and wrote a post called 10 Reasons Why Cisco Umi Will Fail – most of their claims are solvable via interoperability.
Cisco umi
Next is Logitech, which offers a camera add-on for their Google TV product - Revue.
Revue isn’t a video-conferencing device, it’s a multimedia device based on the Google TV platform – viewed by many as (together with similar products like Boxee-box) as the beginning of a new era in Interactive Television.
Logitech camera add-on allows for 720p video communication, in a similar way to Cisco’s umi – The camera sits on the top of the HDTV set, although it doesn’t have pan-tilt mechanism but it does use a wide-angle lens. Eric Kintz, the general manager of Logitech’s video business responded to Cisco umi announcement in a mail to Telepresence Options – “We congratulate Cisco on bringing video calling to the living room – it’s a great day for consumers and the video communications industry. We’re excited to introduce our own HD video calling offering for the living room with our Logitech Revue with Google TV announcement later
today. We believe consumers want the best and most seamless experience which means
HD video calling not only from TV to TV, but also TV to PC or Mac (or vice versa). We also
believe consumers will want a free service and one that is integrated into a broader
entertainment experience, which is why Logitech is excited to introduce an integrated HD
video calling offering with Google TV.”
We have yet to see similar products from other manufacture, but it’s worth mentioning the following:
Skype offers skype integration with HDTV sets from Panasonic, LG and Samsung. While Skype software client allows for HD video-conferencing when used on a powerful PC and a HD camera.
Panasonic announced its VC500 video-conferencing system, that feature-wise is very similar to Cisco Umi – The VC500 is based on a codec, two HD cameras that strangely seem to be a modified versions of their consumer HD camcorders and a 360 degree microphone. Unlike Umi, the VC500 is aimed for SMB/Education/Health market – It remains to be seen if Panasonic will offer a more basic solution for consumers like an integrated codec for HDTV sets.
Apple with its iChat and Facetime protocol is in an easy position to bring Telepresence to the masses. The new Apple TV is priced at a mere 99$, and since it includes a USB port it could be possible that webcam add-on will show up one day.
Video Streaming 35% of mobile data
Allot mobile trends report shows that video streaming makes up 35% of mobile data, while Youtube is 40% out of it.
VoIP and IM on the other hand, takes only 3% – and 80% out of it is Skype traffic.
The full report can be downloaded here.
Nokia will build phones for LightSquared 4G network
According to Bloomberg, “Nokia will provide LightSquared customers with branded, data-centric products, Reston, Virginia-based LightSquared said today in a statement, without elaborating.” Read more at intomobile.
Eric Kintz, VP and general manager of Logitech’s video business
