Mobile operators are locked in a battle with Over-The-Top (OTT) players to provide voice and video services. Concern is mounting that OTTs are generating revenue by using cellular networks as dumb pipes.
A school of though exists that suggests mobile operators can differentiate themselves from OTT rivals based on user experience and quality of service. When it comes to mobile services, HD voice and video applications are the main battleground.
“Since the invention of movies 100 years ago, sight and sound is the killer app,” said Erik Moreno, EVP of Business Development for TIME, earlier this month at Huawei’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Hong Kong.
Ryan Ding, President of Huawei’s Products and Solutions Division, agreed: “We gather 94 percent 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. “User experience will determine operators’ incomes. If we provide a good experience with voice, we can mitigate the decline in voice revenues. If we provide a good video experience, we can stimulate data traffic. We need to move from a network-centric model to experience-centric.”
HD voice
Huawei’s Ding claimed that OTT voice quality from the likes of Skype and WhatsApp currently exceeds “normal” operator voice quality under good wireless conditions, creating a “fierce challenge” for operators. 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 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, resulting in improved quality of service metrics.
Such data is 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 greatly decreased.”
“Apart from improving voice services, VoLTE also boosts the data experience of users indirectly by retaining their data connections on a 4G layer during calls instead of falling back on 3G as if in Circuit-Switched FallBack. As such, VoLTE comprehensively improves customer experience.” Arena also holds that, “As VoLTE adoption increases with the greater penetration of compatible devices, the load on legacy 2G and 3G networks will decrease as VoLTE users are kept on 4G at all times. This enables HKT to focus on LTE network development, 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 that 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, 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 percent of total mobile data traffic in 2014, which will rise to 72 percent 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,” according to Ovum Principal Analyst Dimitris Mavrakis. “What other service can be used by any smartphone and can justifies subscriptions with very large data allowances? There are very few, if any, services that can claim this.”
Huawei’s Ryan Ding proclaimed video to be “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 for measuring user experience of video services, and this is something Huawei is looking to rectify. Ding talked of a new measure of video experience called U-vMOS, ranking the quality from 5 (excellent) to 1 (very poor). 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,” said 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 getting higher. According to a survey conducted by Huawei mLAB on newly delivered smartphones during the first half of 2015, the resolution of 77 percent of smartphones was higher than 720p, and flagship models from every device manufacturer now support 1080p. LTE networks supporting 3 to 5 Mb/s downlink can support a “favorable” 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 is four times higher than 720p, equal to 2560×1140 pixels. Currently there are around 40 types of 2K mobile phones, and it is expected that more than 10 percent 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.”