Unified Communications: The Killer App for 4G?

(Aug 27 2012) 4G , 4G World , Applications , Mobile Enterprise , Unified Communications

1. For most of the history of wireless communications, the key goal has always been the minimization or even the elimination of any differences in performance between wireless and wireline. Voice? Check – and the audio quality and overall reliability of 3G and 4G (voice will shortly be in broad deployment here) are vastly better than early 1G and 2G systems. Messaging, including multimedia? Check, thanks to improved protocols and bandwidth availability. Video? Check – well, at least if your data plan has enough bits on it every month. Data and the Web? Check – mobile browsers today are essentially as good as their PC counterparts, and HTML5 promises an end to incompatibilities once and for all.

   So, then – every communications modality on wire is today available on wireless. The only major goal yet to be accomplished, then, is the integration of all of these under a single, centrally-managed umbrella – what’s known as unified communications, or UC. Now, there is no single, broadly-accepted definition of UC, and vendors in the space are quick to point out differences in both philosophy and implementation among their various offerings. Key recurring themes in UC today, however, include enhanced security, improved regulatory compliance, lower costs and related efficiencies, easing the transition to all-IP voice, and, of course, the unification of multiple forms of communications under a single management umbrella.

   And yet UC has relatively little penetration in the mobile world today. From a wired perspective, UC’s unification was primarily in bringing the “old” world of the PBX and the “new” world of VoIP into a single, integrated solution that could serve at least the voice needs of everyone in an organization. The rise of mobility initial focused our attention on another interesting and related concept, fixed/mobile convergence, or FMC, which provided a similar outcome for wireless and wireline voice (and, in a slightly different form, unification of VoIP over Wi-Fi and cellular, which is often called mobile/mobile convergence). And, like mobile UC (MUC), FMC and MMC have both to date had little impact on either mobility or communications despite a broad set of obvious benefits. Expect MMC to rise again in a big way, in fact, only this time it will be called cellular offload (to Wi-Fi), essential if we are to meet the capacity demands and user expectations that continue to build.

   The fact that advanced concepts like these take a fairly long time to achieve market impact and meaningful penetration shouldn’t really be all that surprising. With the rapid evolution of technology and frequent turnover in both hardware and software from network core to carrier wireless services to client devices, enterprises haven’t really had the opportunity to create long-term mobile communications strategies. Technology suppliers have been frantically updating their offerings to keep up with both technological advances and competition. Innovations usually appear as point solutions and take some time to gel into converged offerings. So it’s really only now, with the advent of 4G, the MUC can really begin to take hold.

   Why? Because 4G is anchored in two key technologies that will, at least, see comparatively little evolutionary pressure over the next few years: wireless IP and LTE. IP is already fairly mature, with communications and network services of all forms already well supported. UC, then, can rely on this underlying plumbing and focus on applications, both for users and service management. And LTE for the first time provisions wireless broadband based on a single technology across the entire globe (on different frequencies, of course, but that issue is much easier to deal with today than even just a few years ago). LTE, then, provides the base that enables UC vendors to roll out common, cost-effective solutions with global appeal and which are well supported all the way from app to airwaves. Again, this has never happened before in the history of wireless, and represents an important overarching trend: it’s time to think more about apps and operations, and less about networks and basic technologies.

   I can’t think of better news for enterprises and other organizations. Imagine all forms of human communications – presence, voice telephony, messaging from voice mail to IM and MMS to e-mail, conferencing and other collaboration, shared access to message archives or any form, the management and cost-effectiveness required to justify major investments. Imagine just unified voice mail (this one being at the top of my wish list; how come my landline and wireless voice mail systems are so difference despite being provided by the same carrier?) and MUC can be seen as the exciting, truly unifying opportunity that it is – and perhaps even the killer app for 4G.

   And, in case you’re wondering, this is why we’re doing a session dedicated to the topic of mobile unified communications [link] at the upcoming 4G World conference [link]. Yes, MUC is that important - it’s my pleasure and privilege to Chair this session, and I hope to see you there.

    

   By: Craig Mathias, Farpoint Group - Special to 4G Trends

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