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November 27-29, 2012
South San Francisco Conference Center
Service Providers and OTT: WebRTC as a Game Changer?
Dean Bubley
Founder & Director
Disruptive Analysis
November 28, 2012
About Disruptive Analysis
• London-based analyst house & strategic consulting firm • Cross-silo, contrarian, visionary, independent • Advisor to MNOs, vendors, regulators & investors • Focus on 3G, 4G, operator strategies, VoIP, OTT, disruption • Published report on “Telco-OTT Strategies”, Feb 2012 • Workshops on Future of Voice & #TelcoOTT
– With Martin Geddes Consulting (credited for various slides here) – Next event in London & US in H1’13 (futureofvoice.com)
Twitter @disruptivedean . Blog: disruptivewireless.blogspot.com
It’s all looking pretty grim anyway
Voice & SMS saturation & cannibalisation
Regulation & competitive impacts
Weak content & VAS propositions
Economic pressures
Ecosystem competition
Connecting the last unconnected
Smartphones & data growth
Better segmentation, pricing & promotion
Innovative services & enablers
Embracing & exploiting fragmentation
“It’s all those nasty OTTs’ fault!!”
STOP looking for a scapegoat & take responsibility
Voice ≠ Telephony
• Now: 2G & 3G • Future: Smartphones & LTE
Voice
Telephony
Voice
Telephony
Video, context, sense Video
Gaming, CEBP, surveillance, social voice, TV voice etc
Voicemail Conferencing
PTT
Service
e.g. Telephony
Product
e.g. Skype, IP-PBX
Feature
e.g. Zynga IM
Function
A telephony demand cliff?
Telephony: Catastrophe imminent?
Price & revenue Demand Supply
Core question: Can data services offset the decline of voice & messaging?
Uncomfortable answer: probably not, based on recent evidence
Disruption and innovation are both inevitable & essential, irrespective of WebRTC
Voice & messaging go in-context
Peak telephony & SMS is here
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Mobile core services revenue, indicative W Europe BASELINE, ie excluding WebRTC Total c40% fall
from peak
Mobile telephony
SMS & today’s mobile data services
Telephony c80% fall from peak
Personalisation is done by people
Mobile calls SMS MMS Email
Mobile calls SMS (RCS?)
99% of personal comms for all
use cases
Lowest common denominator just
when needed
User-selected portfolio:
perfect fit for specific use
cases
+
Fragmentation is valuable
Convergence & standards
Fragmentation & innovation
… new standardised services are neither necessary, nor sufficient.
They are irrelevant at best, and actively damaging at worst.
It will fragment “because it can”. Consumer need for
ubiquity is over-rated
Device diversity = OTT inevitable
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1 2 3 4 5 6
# connected devices owned
Probability of all of a user’s Internet / messaging devices being on a single telco’s network
Free 3rd party WiFi
Shared data plans only a partial response
Telcos already exploiting Internet
Owned & operated by mobile operators Usable by anyone, not just subscribers Via apps & public Internet Telco-OTT Services
OTT-style services offer the only hope for continued telco services growth & increased relevance
Harsh truth: Telco-OTT mandatory
• Telephony & SMS prices have peaked
• Telephony & SMS demand has peaked
• APIs, HD, Video, Bundles only delay the inevitable
• Need for new voice-based services beyond “calls”
• Too fast-evolving for new “federated” services
• Too uncertain / innovation-driven for standards
Comms
Content
Cloud
Connec-tivity
Over 100 identified Telco-OTT products in the
market.
Telco-OTT: more than just VoIP/RTC
Biz models may not be obvious
…. Carriers need to move away from the obsession with
“subscriptions” with WebRTC/OTT
WebRTC: game-changer & threat
The future?
Microsoft CU-RTC-WEB ???? In the crossfire
WebRTC is a magnifier & catalyst
Now
With WebRTC
My enemy’s enemy….
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd. 2012
“WebRTC will hurt OTTs more than Telcos!”
… & create new, better, more disruptive OTT players. Great.
Telco involvement with WebRTC
• AT&T most visible
– Participant in standards, eg proposing push for notifications
– Developer-centric approach
• Telefonica likely a major player
– TokBox acquisition
– Firefox OS advocacy
– TUMe & other TefDig products
• DT & FT at recent events
– FT on W3C WG
– VF & Telecom Italia also on WG
• Anecdotes about China Mobile but no confirmation
– On W3C WebRTC WG list along with China Unicom, Huawei, Baidu, TenCent & China Academy of Sciences
• Also on W3C working group
– SKT (Korea)
– Smart (Philippines)
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2012
Multiple constituencies involved
Telco WebRTC interest
VoLTE & Telco-OTT teams
curious/worried by WebRTC
Enterprise VoIP / UC /
conferencing moving to WebRTC
Ground-up interest in
WebRTC (in labs etc)
Apps, developer & HTML5
initiatives adding WebRTC
+ Policy / broadband teams: Can we detect / block / bill for it? Regulatory: What does this mean, how do we do 911 etc?
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2012
Overlapping universes
Telco services
Pure OTT apps
WebRTC
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd. 2012
“Gateway into IMS” Softphones etc
Browser-based Telco-OTT Network & platform APIs
“Easy options” for Telcos+WebRTC
• Charging platform
• Legal requirements
• Notifications
• Numbers / directories
• WiFi access (in theory…)
• Network QoS (in theory…)
• But does any of this really move the needle?
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd. 2012
Some myths to avoid for WebRTC
Quality & QoS
• Impending quali-pocalypse
• Users appear to care less than expected – Some high-Q use cases (eg
sales call)
– Internet vs. non-Internet
• Quality driven by much more than network – Eg Coverage (esp for LTE)
WiFi
• “Seamless connection”
• HetNets
• Mobile carriers are very important or in control
• The user & operator are the only stakeholders
A quick diversion to some pet topics of mine:
Main WebRTC strategies for SPs
Extend on-net services
Turbocharge Telco-OTT
apps
Sell packaged WebRTC
services to subscriber
Enhance developer platform
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd. 2012
Perpetuate legacy models “Put lipstick on a pig” – eg RCS
Improves relevance… but
revenue?
Sell genuine “new stuff” to existing
audience
Lower costs/complexity &
improve reach & “virality”
Also: invest / incubate
Conclusions: WebRTC & SPs
• No definitive answers yet
• Makes the threats worse & the opportunities better – Battle new OTTs or old ones: result is the same
• Extending “reach” for poor services doesn’t help
• SPs need to exploit WebRTC to create or resell
• Avoid the “federation trap”
• Manage diverse internal stakeholders & teams – WebRTC will be pervasive across telco “domains”
• Be nimble
November 27-29, 2012
South San Francisco Conference Center
Thank You
Dean Bubley
Disruptive Analysis
@disruptivedean
Skype: disruptiveanalysis