Future of Voice - Gotcha! Presentation that Dean Bubley and Martin Geddes gave at the Future of Voice workshop. It explores the obstacles and challenges that may stifle innovation or impede the adoption of new voices services.

1. Future of Voice Workshop
Gotcha!
8th October 2013
Dean Bubley & Martin Geddes
dean.bubley@disruptive-analysis.com
mail@martingeddes.com

2. What could possibly go wrong?
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd 2013

3. Lots of things…


Battery life
Poor UX





“Which browser tab is ringing”
RF coverage/interference
Microphones/earpieces/headsets
Security
Etc.
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

4. There are trade-offs…
vs
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

5. Call quality: elephant in the room

US – voice in focus
 Rural
call completion
 Verizon/VoiceLink

UK – regulatory change
 New
consumer
broadband metrics
 More than “speed”

EU – major debate
 “Assured
Oct 2013
services”
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

6. Gotcha!
Consumer
broadband voice

7. Not all broadband is created equal…
Example: Two different ADSL providers in the same location, same “speed”
Great for voice
Oct 2013
Poor for voice
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

8. Bufferbloat & Active Queue Management
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

9. A Recent Bad Skype Experience
1.8M/448k ADSL – wholesale 20CN
Loss: 0.1%.
Delay: 40ms-50ms
20M/2M Cable broadband
Loss: <0.5%.
Delay (one-way): 50ms-60ms, jumping
to 500ms for a second or two, then back
Oct 2013
10M/1M ADSL Business LLU
Loss: Wandering from a typical 0%-2% up
to as high as 48% for a second or two.
Delay: 50-70ms
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

10. Different speeds & characteristics
SLOW & STATIONARY LOSS/DELAY
Good Experience
Bad Experience
VERY FAST
& VARIABLE DELAY
Oct 2013
FAST
& VARIABLE LOSS
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

11. Voice quality depends on more than speed
STATIONARITY
Determines the chance
that applications can
adapt to the network
Most stationary connection
had the BEST Skype
experience
HIGH
Fastest connection
had the WORST
Skype experience
LOW
SLOW
Oct 2013
SPEED
FAST
Determines which
applications are feasible
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

12. Gotcha!
Enterprise &
Carrier Voice

13. Does over-provisioning work?
Can we run a “converged” voice and data
network?
 How to capacity plan the system?
 How to measure and manage voice quality?

Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

14. Other “gotchas”

Assumed substitutability of IP transport


Capacity planning


Either uneconomic or ineffective; poor signalling/media interaction
Call admission control


“Residual packet service time” problem is repeated service killer
QoS


Edge/core, first/last 100 kbps, different media (they are not the same!)
Unified Comms is brittle and prone to failure due to lack of CAC
Measurement & management

Oct 2013
“Jitter”, “bandwidth use” are not direct QoE proxies
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

15. The biggie: SLA composability



All the individual SLAs were
met along the chain…
…but the voice service
doesn’t work!
What’s wrong?
We don’t live in
TDM land any more!
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

16. Other horrors (or opportunities…)

Ever more NAT/FW/middlebox latency & variability issues


Internet fragmentation – islands of (non)connectivity


IPv6 scaling issues on public Internet + rising routing overheads?
Audio + video processing value chain



NFV/SDN may make things worse…
Noise cancellation + suppression interactions
Multi-bearer comms; media processing in the cloud
Ecosystem shift - “climate change” - IT-isation


Oct 2013
Middle players (i.e. innovative telco suppliers) will get bought out
Instability of supplier relationships
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

17. Last (but not least…)
Regulators
Oct 2013
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013

18. Get in touch
We can help you prepare for a
world where voice is a feature,
not a service. Find out more
dean.bubley@disruptive-analysis.com
twitter.com/disruptivedean
www.disruptive-analysis.com
Newsletter
Oct 2013
mail@martingeddes.com
Twitter.com/martingeddes
www.martingeddes.com
Newsletter
Copyright Disruptive Analysis Ltd & Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd 2013