From the Kitchen to Ubiquity: Telephony's Transformation… & Rising ChallengesFrom the Kitchen to Ubiquity: Telephony's Transformation… & Rising Challenges

The transition from fixed to mobile endpoints and the rise of the ubiquitous Internet continues to challenge traditional telecom service providers.

When inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson, he said: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." While this point-to-point call between two devices in adjacent rooms did use electricity, it was barely above two tin cans and a piece of string. It is amazing to see how far we have come in about 140 years. The "string" is gone, and the devices are ubiquitous.

Let's take a look at this transformation, as well as the stress it is putting on the entire infrastructure and on providers of communications services.

The Road to Ubiquity As We Knew It
From the time of Bell's first call until the 1980s, the industry focused on getting phones into people's kitchens and onto their desks, and putting in place a system to make it easy to call between them. This involved a succession of technologies that focused on defining the endpoints and making them accessible. Starting with party lines, the system progressed through rotary dialing and relays, the transition from an analog transmission infrastructure to a digital switched infrastructure, and the creation of standardized phone devices and interfaces. Over time, the systems became automated and simple to use.

By about 1986 -- 110 years into the journey -- telephony was almost ubiquitous in most of the developed world, with phones in virtually every kitchen and office. A phone number was specific to the device and, thus, its location. Anyone could pick up a handset, dial a number and reach the phone to which he or she wanted to connect. Of course, callers had no guarantee they'd reach the individual to whom they wanted to talk, unless only that particular person resided at the phone's location (e.g., an office). Dialing a home could be problematic. How many times did a young suitor hang up when, instead of his paramour, one of her parents picked up the phone? The phone was a location device and was only usable in the context of a fixed location.

The Next Phase: Redefining Ubiquity
In the next phase, telephony transitioned from fixed physical location to virtual ubiquity. This started with the mobile phone and then accelerated with voice over IP and the softphone. First the mobile phone changed telephony from being a fixed location/device to a mobile device. Then VoIP enabled the device to be a computer and located anywhere in the world, regardless of networks, local telecom regulations, or other barriers. The change has been dramatic: From a phone number being assigned to a physical device in a fixed location, we now have numbers that can represent multiple devices available for use anywhere. Even more complex is the fact that telephony endpoints can now come in many different forms: a fixed device, a mobile device, software operating on a PC, an application running on some other device, or -- with technologies like WebRTC -- JavaScript running in a browser.

Our Current Phase: Addressing the Resulting Challenges
This transition has presented and continues to present huge challenges to traditional telecommunications service providers. When all of the devices were only on the ends of service provider-controlled wires, managing them as controlled assets was possible. This continued in the wireless world of the late '90s and early 2000s, as the devices were simply at the end of a radio instead of a wire. But more and more, devices are anywhere on the Internet. Sometimes they are even a continent away and connected to a network that neither the provider nor any partner controls -- other than through the loose affiliations of Internet peering.

Entering this new world are the over-the-top (OTT) players designing their systems to provide services over the ubiquitous Internet, thereby relegating traditional service providers to IP transport only. The combination of these transitions and innovations are creating incredible challenges and stress on the traditional telecom business model. For example, Skype is reportedly carrying more than 50% of international voice dialing traffic today. While some carriers may be comfortable with only providing transport, most are not. The big issue they face is how to retain the value that existed in the tethered end device models of wired and wireless telephony in this new world of OTT services.

The Defining Factor: Quality Of Service
A focus on service quality, which customers have long seen as valuable, is critical. Some carriers, like T-Mobile, are introducing services that allow them to support devices that aren't on their networks. Other service providers have talked about using WebRTC as a mechanism for allowing users to access their services from devices anywhere on the Internet. As service providers explore these options, they must figure out how to provide a user experience over the open Internet that matches up to the experience delivered via their controlled-access networks. If the service is no better than that provided by Skype or some other free service, then why would customers, especially enterprises, continue to buy it?

The key to delivering this new ubiquitous service is to enable service delivery over the Internet with quality levels that service providers can manage and that can match the level of quality offered by the local access networks they control. This can be done only by looking above and beyond the best-effort open Internet. Providers must be able to provide a real-time communications network architecture that runs in parallel with the open Internet where the Internet can be congested (at the core), but can work in conjunction with the open Internet where bandwidth is abundant (the last mile). Such a real-time communications overlay network substituting the core of the Internet, such as Voxbone's recently introduced global WebRTC-to-SIP delivery network, would allow service providers to deliver the quality of service their customers expect, anywhere on the Internet, including on other service providers’ networks.

Looking Into the Future: Video Communications & Net Neutrality
The next challenge will be the integration of video into virtually all communications. However, this raises large potential issues, including net neutrality.

As we move to video, the outcome discussions around net neutrality will have a higher impact. For example, if a telecommuting employee’s real-time communications traffic has to contend with streaming media traffic that has priorities due to financial relationships with the local ISP, an important business call may suffer from loss of video quality. Although real-time video communications requires relative assurances of delivery in the last mile, carriers can assure a relatively good end-to-end service quality using overlay transport networks. Discussions around net neutrality will determine the extent to which the use of such overlay networks is permitted.

Net neutrality is a double-edged sword for service providers. While it could improve the quality of their services offered outside the reach of their own networks, it might be detrimental to the value of the services offered on their "home" network. Video and other real-time communications traffic requiring a decent amount of bandwidth will be impacted substantially by decisions on net neutrality – far more than for services such a Netflix and other online media services, which do not have a real-time aspect to them.

In the end, the service provider community will have to decide which is better: operating behind the walled gardens that eliminating net neutrality will provide, or the capability to extend their services in the many places to which net neutrality will open the door. Either option will come with benefits and challenges. Then again, it may not even be a choice that providers can make for themselves, if regulators decide to impose net neutrality.

Plasman is vice president of marketing & product management at Voxbone.