It’s no secret that mobile operators are locked in a battle with so-called ‘Over-The-Top’ (OTT) players to provide voice and video services, with concern mounting that OTTs are generating revenue while using cellular networks as ‘dumb pipes.’
But there is also a school of thought that suggests mobile operators are in a position to differentiate themselves from OTT rivals based on user experience and quality of service. And when it comes to mobile services, high-definition (HD) voice and video applications are the key battleground.
“Since the invention of movies 100 years ago, sight and sound is the killer app,” remarked Erik Moreno, EVP of Business Development at media giant TIME, earlier this month during Huawei’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Hong Kong.
Ryan Ding, president of Huawei’s products and solutions division, was in agreement: “Humans gather 94 per cent of information from the eye or ear. If we can provide best-quality voice and video we will have the best possible services.”
To reach this level of performance, Ding believes operators must up their game. “The user experience will determine operator income. If we provide a good experience on voice we could mitigate voice revenue decline, and if we provide good video experience we can stimulate data traffic. We need to move from a network-centric model to being experience-centric.”
HD Voice
Huawei’s Ding (pictured, left) claimed that OTT voice quality from the likes of Skype and WhatsApp is currently exceeding “normal” operator voice quality in a good wireless condition, creating a “fierce challenge” for operators . He stated that there are 1.8 billion subscriptions to OTT voice services, twice the size of the world’s largest mobile operator.
“If we do nothing then customers will vote with their feet,” he warned.
For Ding, the solution is Voice-over LTE (VoLTE) services. He claims it is superior in quality to HD Voice and is far more spectrally efficient than traditional 2G/3G voice services. Citing data from South Korean operator LG U+, Ding said the deployment of VoLTE increases call times by a factor of three and results in improved quality of service metrics.
Such data was supported by comments from Alex Arena, Group Managing Director of Hong Kong’s largest mobile operator HKT, which launched the country’s first VoLTE network in May 2014. “The biggest change is that VoLTE users are always on LTE so they can enjoy high quality voice, video and other data services simultaneously,” he explained. “This greatly improves the LTE user experience. Since users have migrated to VoLTE, the load on legacy 2G and 3G networks has been greatly decreased.”
“Apart from voice service improvement, VoLTE also improves the data experience of users indirectly by retaining a user’s data connection on a 4G layer during calls instead of falling back on 3G as if in Circuit-Switched FallBack. As such, VoLTE gives a comprehensive improvement of customer experience. Furthermore, as VoLTE adoption increases with the greater penetration of compatible devices, the load on legacy 2G and 3G networks will decrease correspondingly as VoLTE users are kept on 4G at all times. This enables HKT to focus on LTE network developments and continue refarming legacy spectrum into LTE in the future.”
According to the GSMA, more than 35 operators worldwide have already commercially launched VoLTE services. Meanwhile the Global mobile Suppliers Association claims a total of 111 operators are investing in VoLTE.
One of those investors is China Mobile, the world’s largest operator. Dr Fan YunJun, Chairman and CEO of China Mobile International Ltd, revealed at Huawei’s event that it will support VoLTE services in 100 cities by the end of 2015, following its first launch in August in Hangzhou.
HD Video
While voice was once regarded as the core service of mobile operators, video is now dominating the industry. According to Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index, video accounted for 55 per cent of total mobile data traffic in 2014 and this figure will rise to 72 per cent by 2019.
“Generation Z will rather watch video on their mobile devices than any other platform, and that’s going to be a paradigm shift,” commented TIME’s Erik Moreno. “Video is the killer app.”
“Video is the best thing that has ever happened to mobile networks,” proclaimed Ovum Principal Analyst Dimitris Mavrakis. “What other service can be used by any smartphone and justifies subscriptions with very large data allowances? There are very few, if any, services that can claim this.”
Huawei’s Ryan Ding proclaimed video as “the new voice” in his presentation at the event, but also outlined the challenges that operators face, especially in the area of high-definition video. Ding cited an OpenWave Mobility study that claimed a third of subscribers expressed a strong view that video buffering is simply unacceptable, with video delivery by operators lagging behind the latest handset technology.
To date, there has been no industry-wide standard to measure user experience of video services, and this is something Huawei is looking to rectify. Ryan Ding talked of a new measure of video experience called U-vMOS, ranking the quality from a 5 (‘excellent’) down to a 1 (‘bad’). Huawei is promoting U-vMOS as an SDK, supported by Windows, Android, iOS and Linux.
“Huawei’s vMOS score is a step in the right direction,” noted Ovum’s Mavrakis. “[It is focused on] trying to understand end user experience that is tied with KPIs that users directly perceive: video quality, video stalling and buffering delay.”
Over time, it is expected that demand for HD services will explode. After all, as technology develops and the cost of HD screens decreases, the resolution of smartphones is becoming higher. According to a survey performed by Huawei mLAB on newly delivered smartphones during the first half of 2015, the resolution of 77 per cent of smartphones was higher than 720p and flagship models from every device manufacturer now support 1080p. LTE networks supporting 3-5Mb/s downlink can support a “favourable” 720p video service experience.
Looking ahead, the report claims that a 2K video experience “will be the target of mobile networks and become the mainstream.” The standard 2K resolution of mobile phones refers to four times that of 720p, equal to 2560×1140 pixels. Currently there are around 40 types of 2K mobile phones and it is expected that more than 10 per cent of new devices shipped next year will support 2K.
Dual HD 4.0
Ryan Ding calls Huawei’s voice and video efforts ‘Dual HD 4.0’, reflecting a minimum ranking of 4 (‘Good’) on the Voice MOS and Video MOS metric. “We hope that the whole industry can work together to provide dual HD 4.0. This will become the most important competitive differentiator in the future,” he stated.
“We believe a new experience-driven era is coming,” concluded Huawei’s Ding. “We want to work with customers and industry partners so end users can experience high definition voice and video anywhere.”
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