Voice vs. Video: What do operators need to focus on to ensure success?

From corporate case studies and live news footage to celebrity interviews and YouTube clips of the world’s most comic cats, video has taken off in a major way, placing us well and truly in the video era. But what does this mean for operators which have, in many ways, been the ones to pay the price for i ts popularity? While there are certainly network improvements which need to be made to make it more agile for video traffic, can operators afford to ignore voice services completely?

 

It was exactly these questions which Ryan Ding, President, Products and Solutions at Huawei, aimed to answer in a key note he delivered during the company’s sixth Global Mobile Broadband Forum. Addressing the audience of around 800 delegates, Ding began his speech by setting out what he was not going to talk about – products and technologies. 

 

“Instead, I want to share some new ideas about what the mobile experience looks like in 2020,” he said. “Here’s a key word – experience. This is what I want to talk about because we believe a new era is coming.”

 

Ding emphasised this with a reference to GSMA figures which show that mobile penetration globally has already reached more than 100 per cent. This, he continued, means a new milestone for the whole industry is on the horizon.

 

“The challenge of populating the mobile network is coming to an end,” he added. “So what do we do next?”

 

Indeed, this is a question that the many mobile operators attending Huawei’s annual exhibition and conference will have heard numerous times at various conferences. But what was also telling was that this year – for the first time – the Global Mobile Broadband Forum attendees also included representatives from non-telecoms industries including media services, financial services, media services and manufacturers. 

 

It is this synergy which, according to Ding, is key to an operator’s future success – but this absolutely does not mean operators should forget their core business. 

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In fact, the complete opposite is true, as Ding highlighted by moving on to talk about how operators should be revolutionizing their voice services in the age of video. Rather than investing solely in video, as some players in the industry have been advocating, operators should also be ploughing their resources into improving the quality of their customers’ calls.

 

“Perhaps we can learn something by looking at the film or movie industry,” continued Ding. “Currently, almost all families have a television but when a new movie comes out the first option for most people is to go to the cinema because it gives viewers a much better experience, an immersive one, which is something they cannot get from their TV sets.”

 

Therefore, the experience provided, Ding went on, can be a competitive differentiator in the market. To illustrate his point he referred to the mobile market’s Iceberg Model. Here, the tip of the iceberg which is visible represents the revenue operators make from voice and data packages, while the mass below the water represents the profit that could  be made by concentrating more on the user experience.  

 

“We already know that if the user does not experience good coverage, high bandwidth and low latency, they are likely to switch providers very quickly,” said Ding. “But as a human being, 94 per cent of information we receive is processed by the eyes and the ears so it makes sense for operators to put the same emphasis on the quality of experience when looking at their voice services. If we can deliver a good voice experience – for instance HD voice – then we believe that operators can begin to make money from voice once again, turning around the decline they have seen over the last several years.”

 

According to Ding, this level of service that operators need to provide to keep customers paying for voice services is not currently being delivered across the market. Consequently, further innovation and investment is needed.

 

“But why is it not being delivered?” asked Ding. “Is it because of the handsets? I don’t think so. Currently all new smartphones provided by Samsung, Apple and Huawei already have an audio chipset installed to provide HD voice. The poor quality comes from the networks. Operators still use old-fashioned wireless voice technologies and this isn’t good enough especially when more and more competition is emerging in the form of Over The Top (OTT) content providers.” 

 

Of course, with video dominating content the way it does today, customers’ eyes should not be completely forgotten. In addition to improving the quality of their voice services, Ding also encouraged them to look at their video offering – and urged them not to shy away from launching new services of their own, for instance, through partnerships with content providers. 

 

“Video is a fundamental element of our daily operation,” said Ding. “Handsets are often the first screen users view content on and video-on-the-go is a new and growing habit so video has to become more important for operators.”

 

Again, just like with voice, the experience of watching content on mobile phones is key. Referring to a consumer survey from Huawei mLAB with Oxford of University, which questioned more than 4,000 people, Ding listed the top three objective factors which reflect subjective experience in relation to video. 

 

The first, he said, was the Interaction Experience – including initial loading time – with the best experience giving zero-waiting time before delivering the content. Next, was the Viewing Experience, for instance, blocking and stalling, while the third and final factor Ding listed was Content Quality, which refers to the video source performance, in other words, resolution, definition, decoding/bit rate and frame rate.  

 

“For voice services, the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) has used the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) to define voice quality based on the subjective experience,” continued Ding. “By the same methodology, we can use Video MOS to synthetically assess the multiple key performance indicators of video services. To give an example, our U-vMOS provides a unified measurement standard of video performance.”

 

In order to achieve unparalleled service quality, Ding recommended that operators create a dual HD offering which encompasses both voice and video. 

 

In regards to how to achieve this, an excellent mobile broadband network is key. In particular, Ding recommended investment in Voice over LTE (VoLTE) solutions, which can offer four times the spectrum efficiency of 3G voice, leaving vacant spectrum for data, which will help generate additional revenue. Nationwide coverage, content delivery network and interoperability are also required. 

 

Ding added: “We hope the whole industry can work together to provide Dual HD 4.0 and this highly technical vision will become an important advantage for operators in the future. We are living in the digital era and both mediums, voice and video, need to meet the demands which are coming as a result of this.” 

 

Ding’s observations about the convergence of mobile and video were emphasised by the speakers which joined him on the stage in the conference room at Asia-World Expo, in Hong Kong, where the Global Mobile Broadband Forum took place from Tuesday, November 3 to Wednesday, November 4. 

 

The session featured speakers from Google, Time Inc. and CNN, all of which highlighted the importance of mobile operators working with video platforms in order to improve the user experience.  

 

Erik Moreno, Executive Vice President, Business Development at Time Inc., focused his presentation on video and agreed with Ding that operators need to work together with video platforms in order to optimise the experience delivered. 

 

“The partnership between the media and telcos is one of necessity,” he said. “It is critical for both parties’ survival. We are in the content-making business and personally we would love to partner with operators. New technology is bringing operators tremendous opportunities like virtual reality but they can only take advantage if they have the right content so why not partner with a brand like Time to get that content.” 

 

While video promises potential for operators, it is important that this complements, rather than replaces, their core services, like voice. In both mediums, said Ding, there is one factor which will override all other in whether an operator finds success in these areas. 

 

“That is, of course, experience,” he concluded. “The question we have to answer now is how we evaluate that user experience because at the moment we don’t have accurate parameters to describe what a good user experience and it is a difficult term to define. But by achieving difficult, we find differentiation and this means competitive advantage which then translates in to that all important measure of success – money.