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© Disruptive Analysis Ltd, November 2013 Media Processing White Paper 1

Addressing the expanding need forMedia Processing in telecoms networks

A Disruptive Analysis thought-leadership paper

Sponsored by:

November 2013

Author: Dean BubleyContact: [email protected]


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Disruptive Analysis Don’t Assume


Introduction

This document considers the evolving role of media processing (MP) capabilities intelecom networks, reflecting many operators’ moves especially towards WebRTC,but also considering synergy with IMS services, telco-OTT propositions, cloudservices and developer platforms.

As operators adopt more forms of IP communications – either transitioning oldservices to all-IP networks, or creating new ones – it will be necessary to considerMP as a specific fundamental building-block, and optimise its deployment wherepossible. WebRTC is a particular enabler of the “democratisation” of voice and videoservices, which will lead to multiple stakeholder groups and business units withinoperators working on IP communications in tandem.

The main argument is that flexibility and scalability are paramount for MP, as theexact communications applications, their need for media processing involvement – and their rates of growth – are hard to predict.

The market for both voice and video is fragmenting in numerous ways, in starkcontrast to the telecoms industry history of one or two main well-defined standaloneservices. We are seeing the emergence of numerous models for human realtimeconnectivity, and in particular we should expect the integration of communicationswithin websites and apps as well. While this is a hugely exciting trend and will drivenumerous service creation or development opportunities, it will need a willingness toexperiment to create these new offerings cheaply and effectively. Competitors totelcos will certainly look to cloud-based platforms pragmatically for the more complex

capabilities, and operators will need to follow suit.

Rather than recreate MP functions for each new service or application, it makessense to deploy shared and virtualised MP servers that can be re-used for differentpurposes as required. This also fits with the increasingly-popular concept of networkfunction virtualisation (NFV), and may also reflect the need for intelligent location andmanagement of MP elements for best latency and transport traffic minimisation.

It is also useful to consider the concept of MPaaS (MP in the cloud), whether thecapabilities are offered just to internal customer units within the telco itself, orexternally to 3rd parties on a pay-per-use basis. This could fit with the serviceprovider’s broader IaaS/PaaS cloud service portfolio, or dovetail with a developer -centric API initiative.

Either way, the opportunity to create shared MP resources, which can servicetraditional requirements such as IMS/VoLTE, plus new innovations around WebRTCand beyond, seems to be a compelling concept. Obviously, the devil is in the detail,but the general principle seems elegant and worth deeper investigation.

Note: This document has been commissioned by Radisys, but represents theindependent & consistent viewpoint of Disruptive Analysis (as at time of publication).Disruptive Analysis has retained full editorial control over the content and stance.


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Background: fragmentation of communications

Historically, the telecoms industry has delivered standardised voice and data“products” very well – phone calls, audioconferencing, SMS, voicemail, call-centreservices and centrex in some markets. Enterprise business units of telcos haveperhaps re-sold third party videoconferencing, and maybe provided unifiedcommunications and call centre propositions as well. As a result, the IP media-processing needs have been broadly static and predictable.

Although many telecoms companies have discussed the possibility of integrating realtime communications features (especially telephony) with various IT or webapplications, in reality there has been little concrete emerging from most operators.

And carrier VoIP has been adopted only slowly, predominantly on fixed broadbandand in the wholesale domain.

However, recently there have been signs that this might be about to change, over thenext few years, potentially yielding a sudden diversity and fragmentation of thecommunications space, both in business and consumer segments.

Figure 1: Communications is fragmenting from historic monolithic silos

Source: Disruptive Analysis

There are several reasons for this:

Telcos are adopting IP-based communications anyway, typically as theyevolve to either fibre (fixed) or LTE (mobile). This may provide a catalyst foradoption of other services beyond “vanilla telephony”, as operators look toleverage investments in NGN or IMS infrastructure.

End users are now clearly happy to experiment with (and sometimes pay for)new forms of communication. The continued growth of services such asSkype, Google Hangouts, or even the use of in-game chat in multi-player

games is a strong indicator that customers have transcended “the phone call”. And increasingly, users seem willing to exploit video communications, at leastin certain circumstances.

Standalonecalls

Non-callcomms

Embeddedapp/web

calls

Circuit

IP


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A new tier of “cloud telephony” service providers have emerged, which seemto have captured the imaginations of both developers and (in some cases)telcos. Firms such as Twilio, Tropo, Apidaze and others are offering APIs anddevelopment kits for the creation of advanced communications services,

either voice- or video-based. These platform vendors are often cooperatingwith telecoms firms (and some have even been acquired by carriers), apromising signal that brings together some interesting hybrid propositions.

WebRTC allows various disparate units of operators to experiment with voiceand video, rather than remain dependent on the traditional core network teamand basic services as building blocks. It reduces the bar to integratingcommunications “in context” with websites or mobile apps. (WebRTC isconsidered in greater depth below). It can also be used to extend carrierservices beyond the traditional coverage areas to create scale and utility. Thismay enable competition with pure Internet/app players, although there arefew obvious success stories so far.

Taken together, these seem to indicate that we are close to a tipping-point. Certainly,the messaging industry has witnessed a huge explosion of alternative approaches,beyond traditional SMS. Something similar seems about to happen to voice as well,especially as some evidence suggests that younger users are finding the interruptivenature of phone calls anathema and intrusive. What remains unclear is how fast theshift will happen, and whether or not we will continue to expect widespreadinteroperability between the different services, and whether the landscape will becharacterised by carrier versus Internet competition, or some measure ofconvergence of these domains..

What does media processing involve?For many not directly involved with it on a daily basis, the actual applications of“media processing” can sometimes be obscure and hard to grasp. In general, itinvolves a network element working with a stream of “media” (ie voice or videopackets etc) and applying business rules (via applications) and treatments(enhancing voice or video quality), in order to create a particular function or service.

For example, with videoconferencing, it is critically important to get the speech andvisual streams coordinated and in sync. As they transit the network, the streams maypick up different delays and latencies, and so need to be recombined properly(perhaps buffering one part) to make the end-resulting video/voice call acceptable.

Another very important function is transcoding. Fragmentation of codecs betweenstandards, platform choices, and legacy interworking and enabling communicationbetween users, regardless of which device and client, is one aspect of this capability.Even between clients using the same codec, the ability to normalise frame rates,optimising bandwith, picture size and bit rate adaptation are required for effectivecommunication. Although WebRTC is hoping to standardise on certain codecs (this ishighly contentious), there will definitely be cases where a stream needs to beconnected to another system such as the PSTN, enterprise communicationssystems, or perhaps powerful Internet “islands” such as Skype or Microsoft. There isalso still quite a lot of Adobe Flash media used, which again will require translation

to/from WebRTC. There will also be new emerging codecs which will be adoptedover time, such as H.265 and VP9.


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Other functions might include recording content, playing/inserting other snippets ofvoice and video into a stream, applying quality enhancements to voice or video (egecho cancellation or changing image contrast/brightness) and so forth. There may bevalue in equalising the volume levels of the various participants on a conference call,

dealing with noisy background distractions and so forth.

In Disruptive Analysis’ view, there is likely to be an increasing need for mediaprocessing in future. There are likely to be more codecs, more need to interconnectdisparate platforms, more desire to do analytics on voice and video, and obviously just deal with the sheer extra bulk of video traffic as well as new forms of voicecommunication beyond basic “phone calls”.

Potentially, media-processing is also a fertile ground for developer innovation – it’squite possible to imagine an audio or video equivalent of Instagram, for example ,applying filters or other dynamic effects to audio and video. Inserting adverts,subtitles and so forth could also be very useful, as well as innovative ideas around

mixing of streams or even extending the idea of “media” to data applications such assensors and telemetry. If media processing becomes available in the cloud as anetwork service, accessible via Web oriented APIs, the “web services” model ofconsumption of these resources can be enabled, providing Web applicationdevelopers with powerful but easy to use capabilities for innovative services.

Much like in traditional telecom services, not all communications applications willneed extra MP resource – some WebRTC sessions are set up directly as P2P fromone browser to another, without intervening servers or gateways. Any additionalprocessing in that situation will be done locally on the device. But overall, theindications seem to suggest that a good proportion of the new applications will transitsome sort of cloud or core network infrastructure, at which point MP resources mightbe applied.

This is especially true for mobile devices, for which the browser-to-browser modelappears to have significant limitations – various other ways to integrate voice andvideo are appearing already.

Why is WebRTC so important?

Disruptive Analysis believes that WebRTC (a W3C/IETF standard for realtimecommunications on the web) is one of the most disruptive and pivotal shifts intelecoms technology in a decade.

Championed by Google and many of the leading telecom operators and vendors, itpromises to be the catalyst for many of the promised new forms of voice and videocommunications. It should empower millions of developers to embed interactivesessions into web-pages with just a few lines of Javascript. More than 4 billiondevices should support WebRTC (or something closely similar) by the end of 2016.

At its most basic level, it is often described as allowing the creation of Skype-typeexperiences in a web browser - in the context of rich data from the relevant web page/site - rather than a separate application, and without the need for often-flaky

media plug-ins like Flash. It is designed to be secure, tolerant of network glitches,and able to work even when firewalls are in the way. But this belies its sophistication,and also the fact that it works in two “modes”:


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Peer-to-peer, where the connection just goes directly from user to user,without the media streams going via a gateway or server in the middle.

Transit via a server or gateway, which can link together multiple users, addvalue to the media flows through processing, interconnect with other systems

(eg PSTN, IMS, UC) and act as the pivot for a range of monetisable businessmodels.

The technology is still undergoing standardisation, but is already appearing incommercial use-cases in pre-standard form, such as enterprise contact centres,online telehealth consultations, conferencing and many more. It is supported by PCand Android versions of Firefox and Chrome browsers. It is also accessible throughnon-native WebRTC browsers via plug ins, and used in mobile apps and evendirectly in specific devices as well.

( A full analysis of the market and use-cases for WebRTC is outside the scope of this paper. Disruptive Analysis publishes detailed reports on this topic, and also has

various presentations available on Slideshare. See here for details).

While various similar attempts have been made before to create communications APIs (notably Adobe Flash Media), WebRTC appears to have a much greaterchance of success. Firstly, much of the basic “machinery” is available free and open-source, especially the core “media engine” donated by Google. Secondly, its directintegration with the web allows communications to be coordinated with “context” – rather than “click to call”, for example, the user might “click to speak directly to anadviser knowledgeable about hotels in Venice”. Thirdly, the WebRTC ecosystem andstandards domain is very open, approachable and fast – it encourages prototypingand experimentation, fixing problems as they arise rather than waiting for the “official”

version. Lastly, it is being pulled along by such a broad array of separate groups ofapplications – enterprise, telco, consumer web, entertainment, even M2M – that it isinsulated from practical problems or delays with one group individually.

Figure 2: Installed base of WebRTC-supporting devices, m

Source: Disruptive Analysis, Oct 2013 WebRTC report update

http://c/Users/radensam/Documents/AA-Work/AA_MSBU_Marcoms_Projects/20131106_DeanBubley_WP_WEBINAR_WebRTC_Media_Server/disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.htmlhttp://c/Users/radensam/Documents/AA-Work/AA_MSBU_Marcoms_Projects/20131106_DeanBubley_WP_WEBINAR_WebRTC_Media_Server/disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.htmlhttp://c/Users/radensam/Documents/AA-Work/AA_MSBU_Marcoms_Projects/20131106_DeanBubley_WP_WEBINAR_WebRTC_Media_Server/disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.htmlhttp://c/Users/radensam/Documents/AA-Work/AA_MSBU_Marcoms_Projects/20131106_DeanBubley_WP_WEBINAR_WebRTC_Media_Server/disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html


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But perhaps the best indicator of its success – paradoxically – is that the “standard”approach is already fragmenting. Pragmatism is winning over dogmatism. There isnow a lot of momentum around “putting voice and video in to mobile apps, eventhough Apple doesn’t directly support WebRTC”. The actual specific “purity” of

WebRTC is starting to look less relevant. There are enough useful open-source bits(eg the media-engine, encryption and firewall standards), plus assorted WebRTCcloud platforms/SDKs for developers, that the Javascript API is not actuallynecessary in some cases.

As a result WebRTC – or at least its very close relatives – is moving outside thebrowser into 3rd-party APIs for embedding voice/video easily into apps, oralternatively with mor e “hardcore” developers just using the components to createtheir own home-brewed RTC solution.

One side-effect of this will be that browser-browser P2P uses of WebRTC may getovertaken by non-browser cases that transit servers, and perhaps also get

gatewayed to other systems. All things being equal, Disruptive Analysis believes thismay further drive demand for media processing in WebRTC.

Figure 3: WebRTC key use-case status, Oct’13

Source: Disruptive Analysis, Oct 2013 WebRTC report update

Another angle to WebRTC is that it allows the streaming of realtime data as well as

voice and video traffic. This could be web-page components between browsers,sensor data, or a variety of M2M and P2P-type use cases. There will likely be manysurprised with WebRTC DataChannel in coming years. It is as yet unclear whethersuch data might also be classed as “media” from the perspective of the MPcapabilities of the network.

Video will be more important; but how/where?

Few industry observers doubt that video communications (in its broadest sense) willbecome much more important in coming years. That will likely fuel a parallel need for

various types of media processing.

What remains unclear is exactly which use-cases will grow fastest and furthest – andprecisely the best ways to deliver them. Unlike voice communications – which starts


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with basic traditional telephony as by far the most dominant application – video startswith a clean sheet, and several directions for innovation.

Is WebRTC going to be the main catalyst for the creation of new video

communications applications? Will videoconferencing and calling become pervasive? For businesses

mostly, or for consumers? And as web conferencing has, will it create new,revenue-generating use cases for remote collaboration?

Will video communications be driven by in-browser uses (eg customersupport on a web page), in-app (similar to today’s Skype & FaceTime usage),or linked to dedicated hardware?

1-to-1, 1-to-many, or groups?

Will we see “mashups” of video with games or educational tools? Forexample, superimposing images of users’ real faces onto avatars?

Will broader use of “telepresence” become important – for example, a virtual

“window” linking offices in London & New York, allowing staff to interact as ifthey were in the same place.

How much video will transit mobile networks (3G, 4G, satellite etc) rather thanfixed/WiFi connections, and what constraints will that bring?

Will there be a need for much greater amounts of video recording, analyticsand processing for certain applications? If so, will that be carried out on thedevice itself, the edge of the network, the core, or in servers in the cloud?

Will most video communications be confined to “islands”, or will there be abroad need for interconnection (and therefore transcoding and otherfunctions)?

How much video communications will be driven by IMS platforms, rather thanpure web or traditional enterprise systems? What about new domains for

video such as TV, M2M or vertical-industry systems? Will we see a need for video communications “acceleration” to reduce

latency, like a 2-way version of a content delivery network?

Where will video communications (& processing) fit alongside operators’growing initiatives around APIs, developers and partnerships? Will telcos beimporters, exporters, or traders of video?

The right answer is “all of the above, plus probably a lot more”.

This presents several problems to a telecom operator wanting to participate directlyin these services, either as an owner and operator, or as a facilitator or hub for third-parties. Various of the possible tasks – and sources of value – require some quite“heavy lifting” in terms of media processing. One or more services may suddenlyexperience viral adoption as well, demanding scaling for the media elements withoutnecessarily requiring other functions to be expanded as fast. Adoption of a newcodec – or new screen resolution – could occur almost overnight, further driving theneed for flexibility and capacity expansion.

Disruptive Analysis’ view is that one solution to this problem is to decouple mediaprocessing as a separate network function if possible, rather than expect to integrateit with other network elements. A shared, virtualised software MP resource – especially if enabled with appropriate APIs – could fit into a broad range of thesescenarios. At one level, it could work as an MRF for IMS applications, particularly

fitting with VoLTE functions and value-add services. But it could also form part of astandalone videoconferencing or collaboration suite, or as part of a hosted/wholesaleWebRTC platform for developers.


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Implied in decoupling the MP from the application are two key benefits:

The flexibility to build, enhance, and extend applications without constraints,as requirements and user behaviour evolve – in short enabling a general

purpose resource optimised for video to support developers’ innovation. Drive operational and capital costs down via resource reuse – applying the

cloud model of asset repurposing and elasticity to MP.

Meeting telcos’ future MP requirements

Operators already employ media processing for various tasks – audioconferencingservices, interactive voice response (IVR), call recording, contact centres, and more,as well as the MRF (media resource function) in IMS networks if deployed.

In a way, the IMS MRF is a similar but more restricted version of what is beingproposed here – an MRF is intended as a shared resource solely for IMS-residentapplications, using a traditional and specialised 3GPP interface.

But what is becoming very clear is that a large amount (perhaps the bulk) of futureMP requirements will not be linked to an operator’s IMS. Some probably will be, butfor those operators pursuing a serious innovation strategy, a virtualised and API-exposed MP resource should be usable by both IMS and non-IMS applications.

That is something of a contentious statement, so it is worth explaining in a bit moredetail. Originally, it was hoped that IMS would be a platform for all future telecomsIP/multimedia services – especially based around voice, messaging and video

communications. Such services would be linked to subscribers’ numbers, deliveredwith managed QoS and the full suite of supplementary and emergency services, andbe “federated” between multiple carriers and exposed to developers via tightly-controlled in-house APIs.

Unfortunately, that is not how the industry has evolved. The market reality is thatconsumers and businesses have readily adopted non-IMS forms of IPcommunications both on fixed networks and mobile. These have included standalonesystems such as enterprise UC, as well as web- and app-based offers that are oftenreferred to as “OTT”, exploiting generic Internet connections. There are manyreasons for this, including late time-to-market for IMS (especially on handsets – Disruptive Analysis first wrote about the lack of IMS phones in 2006), different billingand charging models such as free/freemium, the unconstrained pace of applicationdevelopment and deployment in the Web / Internet model, and the linking of suchcommunications tools to other technology ecosystems such as device OS’s orenterprise networks & IT systems.

Many in telecom operators have recognised this as well. Rather than trying torecreate all services “in the network”, many now partner with successful UC,videoconferencing, consumer OTT and cloud telephony players, reselling or bundlingtheir non-IMS capabilities. Where operators have attempted to create their own“Telco-OTT” services, typically this has been achieved on a pragmatic independentbasis too.


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Figure 4: IMS will only be used for some future telecom services


In effect, many telecoms units now effectively “disintermediate” their own corenetwork organisations. Consider hypothetically the content division of a telco,wanting to evolve an existing music download service to support karaoke. Orperhaps an IPTV unit wanting to create a new form of reality TV. It is highly unlikelythat either of these would be based on the company’s IMS core, because it wouldprove too inflexible and inaccessible to the bulk of designers and developers involvedin the project. It would also bring with it legacy business models (not least, hugeteams of lawyers) and a tie into a “subscription” approach which may not beapplicable. It would also probably not easily support certain media features such asstereo sound, easy fast-forward/pause, offline mode and so forth. The underlying SIP

signalling protocol is optimised – as the acronym suggest – for “sessions” rather thanmore general forms of interaction.

Telcos’ WebRTC opportunities

A number of telcos have been early advocates of WebRTC – especially AT&T andTelefonica, and more recently Deutsche Telekom, NTT and Orange. Many others arewatching its evolution, or are participating in standards meetings and conferences.

In a way, WebRTC is a double-edged sword for telcos. At one level, it is a

continuation – perhaps a major acceleration – of the “OTT” trend, making it easier tocreate new competitive web-pages or apps containing third-party voice or videointelligence rather than phone calls. But at another level, it allows telcos to play thesame game, creating their own innovative new communications services faster andmore cheaply than before, either on a standalone basis or linked into existingnetwork and application infrastructure.

There is certainly a big push to integrate WebRTC with IMS, in particular. Most of themajor vendors are working on solutions, and numerous service providers aremembers of the relevant 3GPP working group. The most often-mentioned uses arefor the creation of “web-phones” to accompany VoLTE on other devices, or perhapsaround extension of RCS capabilities to devices which have browsers but lack nativesupport.

The Theory The Reality

Core ntwk

& legacyvoice

IMS,

slowly

CorporateUC

Major

vendors

Videoconf

VC spec-

ialists orWebRTC

Developer APIs

3rd party

cloudcomms

VoLTE &RCS

IMSas a

platform

CorporateUC

Videoconf

Developers

Network APIs

Consumer Business OTTs


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In Disruptive Analysis’ view, operators should probably not be putting more than 20 -30% of their overall WebRTC budget and effort into IMS integration – there is somuch more to it, than merely using WebRTC as a front-end to IMS. It is notable thatNTT and Telefonica, in particular, are distributing WebRTC activities more broadly

across their respective groups.

The practicalities of adding WebRTC front-ends to existing telecoms services (or newones like VoLTE) are very involved, with many extra moving-parts and “touch points”throughout the organisation. Lawful intercept, testing, customer support systems,product design and creation, OSS/BSS additions and so forth all need to be in placefor addition of WebRTC to mainstream core services like telephony. While all this isimportant, it will be hard to rush.

In the meantime, telcos need to experiment with and deploy WebRTC elsewhere too. Among the concepts already seen discussed include:

Operator ownership of “WebRTC cloud” platforms & APIs aimed atdevelopers wanting to create cross-device communications, bridgingbrowsers and native mobile apps. Telefonica’s ownership of TokBox isprobably the most visible here.

Addition of WebRTC-type APIs to existing developer programmes, perhapsintegrated with core telephony services for interoperability as well. AT&T hasevangelised this.

Incorporation of WebRTC into home TVs or set-top boxes, allowingapplications such as interactive education, family gaming and so on.

Use of WebRTC by telcos’ enterprise divisions, which wish to offermanaged/hosted contact centres, unified communications or other services. It

is worth noting that most telcos have long sold “non-core” telephony systemsbased on vendor PBXs and UC platforms, to corporate clients, so thephilosophical “not invented here” objection is a lower barrier.

Use of WebRTC within the operator’s own customer contact and supportfunctions, eg for communicating with an agent via the self-care portals on theweb or mobile apps.

Links to content or entertainment units, eg adding interactive communicationsto music or movies.

Embedding voice or video communications directly into M2M platforms, egtruck drivers having a “speak to warehouse” button integrated directly intotheir telematics terminal.

Use of WebRTC to make existing attempts at creating “telco-OTT” or “digital

lifestyle” apps more effective.

In brief, pretty much any unit of a telco that creates a website or an app should bethinking about how to exploit WebRTC. As before, choosing winners at this stage isnearly impossible, but what is certain is that timing will matter. Waiting for the slowwheels of IMS integration to grind to a result will not help all of these otheropportunities.

In other words telco use of WebRTC should be a microcosm of the widermarketplace, not just extension of the IMS/SS7 core. It should involve a diversegroup of innovators willing to choose different trade-offs between QoS and time-to-market, and worry less about interoperability, roaming and other traditional telcobusiness components. That said, it might also allow telcos to leverage their networkcapabilities for prioritising traffic, QoS, compliance, integrated billing andprovisioning, etc., which could have value to certain subscriber segments such as


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business users. Such propositions are very complex to bring to reality, however – many previous suggested use-cases such as “1-800”-style reverse billing for mobiledata have proven unworkable. Disruptive Analysis is watching the evolvingWebRTC/policy domain keenly for signs of realistic applications.

And, where possible, it could make therefore make sense for those groups to shareresources such as media processing, rather than each buying its own separateinfrastructure. Clearly, that may pose some organisational complexities of its own – especially if the shared MP function is used for IMS MRF purposes as well asstandalone WebRTC, but it may be possible to retrofit web-APIs to existing software-based MRFs to extend their abilities towards other applications.

MPaaS – internal & external customers

One possible future direction-of-travel of media processing is found by thinking aboutit in a cloud context. Having a virtualised MP resource, together with appropriate,usable APIs, allows multiple applications to benefit from the same sharedfunctionality. This then allows it to be scaled up and down in capacity, and alsopotentially distributed geographically to help minimise latencies, round-trip times andso forth.

If presented as “MPaaS”, then the picture becomes clearer. In a similar fashion toobtaining storage or compute capabilities from the cloud, the same could be true ofmedia processing as well.

Figure 5: Shared media processing / MPaaS can serve IMS & WebRTC


The MPaaS concept can apply both inside and outside telcos:

Internally, having an MPaaS cloud function could enable various “1st party”

business units to consume MP capabilities. These units could be regionaloperating subsidiaries creating local WebRTC services, the enterprisecommunications unit, consumer content and IPTV business, and so forth.One of the “anchor tenants” would likely be the core/IMS group which will


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want to use MRF capabilities for VoLTE and perhaps other services such asvideoconferencing (Disruptive Analysis retains serious doubts about theviability of RCS/joyn, but that would hypothetically fit here too).

Close partners of the operator could also benefit here, with custom

integrations to the MPaaS. For example, a telco may decide to work with aspecialist firm providing WebRTC cloud/API services, or develop a uniquevariant of a videoconferencing bridging service. Other examples of “2 nd party”interactions could be vendors offering hosted/managed applications, butwithout having the full “heavy lifting” MP capacity to deal with peaks in-house.

3rd-party customers for MPaaS would look more similar to a traditional cloud-services model. Provided either through a developer portal, or perhaps withcapabilities bundled into telco-provided SDKs, voice and video capabilitiescould be offered to “long tail” application creators or enterprise users. Onescenario might be for large companies wanting to manage peaks/troughs invideoconferencing usage, offloading peak traffic to an MPaaS provider.

Organisational challenges

While the idea of shared media processing resource, spanning multiple domains andapplications, sounds compelling at first sight, it has to be recognised that it will needto fit with the real world of telco organisational structures as well.

Historically, operators’ core network businesses have been very much gearedtowards the “official”, 3GPP-approved route to service infrastructure investment anddeployment. The expectation has been for all or most operators to deploy IMS, andfor that to serve as the basis for most future services and revenue. In reality however,

disparate arms of the operator are already pursuing their own agendas. While IMS isand will be important for some operators, it will be neither universal nor a lynchpin ofvalue for others.

Enterprise divisions have partnered with UC and videoconferencing third-partyvendors to offer hosted/multi-tenant platforms rather than build them directly into thecore. Digital lifestyle groups are examining a range of ways to build VoIP or socialapps as differentiators, often with “Telco-OTT” models and radically differentinfrastructure approaches. Vertical units considering educational technology, securityservices, developer platforms, interactive TV or even M2M applications are ploughingtheir own furrow.

While at some level Disruptive Analysis applauds this decentralisation process, atsome point it seems possible that we will move back to a more coordinatedapproach, to avoid duplication of effort and costs – but also to retain flexibility and theremoval of traditional “telco dogma” and conservatism about platforms.

One such approach might be for there to be a new “distributed network” division,intended to develop a telco’s network in such a way that it could support any or all ofthese, at moderate cost and with maximum flexibility. One likely path to that end-goalcomes from the general move towards “the programmable telco”, with two otherwhite-hot acronyms, SDN and NFV.


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The rise of NFV & SDN

Alongside the trends towards adoption of multimedia and WebRTC, various other

shifts are occurring in the telecoms industry in terms of network architecture.Obviously, there is the move towards all-IP access and transport networks, as well asgrowing adoption of LTE networks in mobile and fibre in the fixed-line world. WiFi isbecoming ever-more prevalent as well – typically managed by venue-owners as anamenity, but also sometimes integrated with telcos’ infrastructure.

But perhaps the most important megatrend is the move towards various forms ofvirtualisation – often referred to as the move to the “software telco” or the“programmable network”.

There are two separate but related angles here:

SDN is the separation in the IP access/transport part of the network of the“intelligence” from the heavy lifting of packet-processing. In other words,functions that were historically integrated in individual routers and switchesare now being disaggregated. The “brains” of the IP network can dynamicallyre-programme the functions of its localised agents.

More relevant here is the idea of “network function virtualisation”, NFV. Thisrelates to recreating the various “middle-boxes” in telco networks in software,and virtualising them to create greater flexibility and efficiencies. Rather thanproprietary hardware DPIs, optimisation boxes, SBCs, load balancers and soforth, the idea is to have some or all of these functions running in software, oncommodity hardware. This is very similar to the IT-centric view of cloudcomputing. Potentially this could span both consolidated servers in telcos’

main data-centres and more-distributed functions deeper in the network (oreven the cell-site) to optimise latency.

The idea of shared media processing functions, as well as cloud-based MPaaS, verymuch fits with this wider philosophy, although it was not identified by ETSI as one ofits initial targets for virtualisation. Nevertheless, this paper suggests a rationale forexactly that to occur.

Conclusion

The communications industry is about to get much more complicated. The age ofmonolithic services such as circuit-based “phone calls” and standalone voiceservices. It will be replaced with a much more fragmented landscape of new forms ofIP voice communication, the rising importance of video, and innumerable attempts tomove from standalone calls to app/web-embedded contextual communications.

This presents several challenges to service providers, especially as many are beingforced to invest in IMS infrastructure just to maintain their existing service portfolios inan era of LTE and fibre. As well as continue with the more “classical” approach tovoice and/or video, many will exploit the simplicity of WebRTC and cloudcommunications to launch new, non-IMS products as well. They will also likelypartner with various 3rd-party vendors, and open up capabilities to various groups ofdevelopers.


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While it is hard to predict which services will ultimately prove winners and losers, itseems highly likely that this fragmentation will massively increase the need for mediaprocessing in many instances. While not every scenario needs MP functions, manywill do – especially if we get incompatibility between various forms of “almost

WebRTC” as well as a desire to interconnect with legacy systems.

For this reason, Disruptive Analysis believes that some form of shared, virtualisedmedia processing function makes sense, especially if it can simultaneously servicethe needs of IMS (eg the MRF function) as well as being easily-accessible via APIsto others working on WebRTC use-cases. While this may not happen in its fullincarnation overnight, owing to the practicalities of telco inter-departmentalcooperation, it also fits with the general trend towards NFV and should be consideredby CTOs as a long-term architectural goal.


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About Radisys

Radisys (NASDAQ: RSYS) is a major vendor enabling wireless infrastructure solutions fortelecom, aerospace and defence applications. Radisys’ MRF (Media Resource Function) andT-Series Virtualised Platforms, coupled with Trillium software, services and market expertise,enable customers to bring their products to market faster with lower investment and risk.

Radisys technology is used in a wide variety of 3G & 4G / LTE mobile network applicationsincluding: small cell Radio Access Networks (RAN), wireless core network elements, deeppacket inspection (DPI) and policy management equipment; conferencing and media servicesincluding voice, video and data, as well as commercial offerings for network applications thatsupport the aerospace and defence markets. www.radisys.com @radisys

About Disruptive Analysis

Disruptive Analysis is a technology-focused advisory firm focused on the mobile and wirelessindustry. Founded by experienced analyst Dean Bubley, it provides critical commentary andconsulting support to telecoms/IT vendors, operators, regulators, users, investors andintermediaries. Disruptive Analysis focuses on communications and information technologyindustry trends, particularly in areas with complex value chains, rapid technical/marketevolution, or labyrinthine business relationships. Currently, the company is focusing on mobilebroadband, operator business models, the Future of Voice, smartphones, Internet/operatorecosystems and the role of governments in next-generation networks.

Disruptive Analysis attempts to predict - and validate - the future direction and profit potentialof technology markets - based on consideration of many more "angles" than is typical amongindustry analysts. It takes into account new products and technologies, changing distribution

channels, customer trends, investor sentiment and macroeconomic status. Whereappropriate, it takes a contrarian stance rather than support consensus or industrymomentum. Disruptive Analysis' motto is "Don't Assume".

For more detail on Disruptive Analysis publications and consulting / advisory services,please contact [email protected] . For details about Future of Voiceworkshops & publications, please see www.futureofcomms.com

Website: www.disruptive-analysis.com Blog: disruptivewireless.blogspot.com Twitter: @disruptivedean / @DApremium Quora: Dean-Bubley

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All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Disruptive AnalysisLtd.

Every reasonable effort has been made to verify research undertaken during the work on this document. Findings, conclusions andrecommendations are based on information gathered in good faith from both primary and secondary sources, whose accuracy it is notalways possible to guarantee. Disruptive Analysis Ltd. disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of suchinformation. As such no liability whatever can be accepted for actions taken based on any information that may subsequently prove tobe incorrect. The opinions expressed here are subject to change without notice.
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