Where do I start? Allright, this picture.
Now the context: last monday we met in my place in mexico city. By we I mean: me, Eric, and Antonio. For the recording of chapter one of the video series. There was an interesting talk (platica), mostly between Eric and Antonio.
Ok, this should've been in the video, but we simply didn't / forgot to do it :) No introductions recorded. Therefore allow me to put a brief one here.
Antonio Echeverria works as a solution architect in one of those vendors that are pushing IMS. We knew each other when I was working in a project for an (fixed) operator in mexico. His role / job in the company allows him to get some insights of the current situation of the IMS, business and technical-wise, especially for the mexican market. He's been a telco domain for quite a long time, and I'm fortunate to be able to learn things from him.
Eric Werkhoven was my colleague in the company we used to work for during 2005-2006. The company was developing a hosted call-center solution. Currently he works for another VoIP company producing & providing outbound / predictive dialing solution. A deep understanding and appreciation of the technical challenges in developing and deploying of large-scale VoIP solution is something that I learn from him now and then.
Antonio and Eric are from two different worlds that are colliding (or converging?). I was happy to be able to get them together and talk, exchanging their views, which might not be completely aligned to each other.
The talk we had last Sunday was mostly about the business-models / opportunities around IMS. We think that's the most important point to grasp before delving into technical discussion. I personally am interested to know the value-chain; to see where I -- viewing myself as a (potential :D) service provider -- might be able to fit in, and how to profit from it. That's what I would like to share with others in the video(s). Of course we don't pretend to become an authoritative source for that kind of information. We just wanted to capture our learning process. Here's the unedited conversation I managed to record (only 38 minutes).
Unfortunately, we only had an hour to get together on that day. Because of my stupidity I also forgot to record the first 15 minutes of the conversation (when we were discussing the flow of the dialog); some interesting points were brought up there.
So here I am now, grappling to collect those points and make up for the lacks. I'm trying to back up some of those points with some references I can find on the internet / other sources. Hopefully this can improve the value / usefulness of the information I'm going to provide in the video.
Ok, so that's the context. I promise to post those points as a written text in a couple of days, before presenting them as a video. The point I'm presenting here -- just one point -- is a prelude to that post.
Content proxy. That's one thing that came up during the discussion. We were exploring the scenario where the operator acts as a proxy to the contents in the internet. In Eric's opinion, telco operators are not capable to compete with the internet. The rate of innovation that's happening in the internet is unparalleled. So the operator is not supposed to go down the path trying to (re)create the existing successful services / content on the internet. Basically he considers the thinking that "with IMS the telco operator can be like Google" is misguided at best.
So, being a content proxy might be their (only?) option. Let's go back to the diagram. First and the foremost, IMS is supposed to provide the same set of basic telephony services that people already enjoyed with the current, non-IP, technologies. That's what line A represents.
IMS lives in an IP network (after all IMS is an abbreviation for IP multimedia subsystem :P). In order to be able to fully deliver its promise(s), the clients also need to be in the IP network and have SIP-stack installed (among other things that make them IMS-capable). There aren't enough mobile devices in the market with such characteristics. In fact, it is an obstacle to a wide-spread adoption of IMS.
However, people can already enjoy high-speed access to IP network; 3G. Mobile devices have improved significantly. Things like iPhone, for example, turn lack of screen-space and crippled web browsers into things of the past. People can have direct, unabridged access to services like YouTube, Last.FM, etc. That's what line B represents.
The "content proxy" idea, to my understanding, is like trying to drive the subscribers away from line B to line C. People will do that willingly if they perceive additional values. What kind of additional values can be provided (with access through line C)? What does IMS -- and only IMS -- have to offer that enable such services? There was a relevant point raised during our discussion (that might provide an answer to those questions). It has to do with subscribers' profile (stored in the HSS) or rating & billing system (that is a complex stuff to install, configure, and manage correctly). Operators might be able to bank on it in their IMS offerings. That idea is still not perfectly clear to me, give me time to investigate it further.
In the meantime, please chip in, help me enrich the discussion, help me arrive to the right conclusion.
Thanks in advance and best regards,
Raka
UPDATE: When the recording started we were talking about Connected Home that Antonio mentioned to us. It got me thinking of the effort from Ericsson to push further the widespread of this telco 2.0 app. development, by providing hosting for SIP-servlet applications (on Sailfin), and some helper APIs and other stuffs. Check it out on the Ericsson Labs page.
