WiMax to Give Unified Communications a Much-needed Fillip

Unified communications is the buzzword in almost every vertical today for its ability to link communications networks with business applications like IP-PBX, VoIP, email, audio/video and web conferencing, voicemail, unified messaging, instant messaging, and various other forms of mobility. According to Frost & Sullivan, the UC market opportunity in 2010 is expected to be worth slightly over $4.45 bn, growing at 4.4% over 2009. However, this exciting NGN technology has not quite taken off in India.

While many reasons have been given for this apparent disconnect; according to industry experts, it all boils down to three main reasons: lack of a unified approach, lag in adoption of new systems and government regulation.

Challenges Facing UC
According to Vikas Bansal, director, carrier business, Cable&Wireless Worldwide, “Despite maturity of the applications associated with UC and enterprise collaboration, there is still a widespread lack of understanding about what is needed to deploy them effectively and get the most out of investments in this area. The common belief that if you roll out the relevant applications, you have a UC solution is simply not the case. A series of disparate and disconnected applications is not a UC solution. For unified communications to really deliver on its promise, it needs to be unified at the network layer as well as at the point of delivery.”

While similar problems of end-to-end network integration may be faced the world over, India is unique in the time taken to transit from traditional systems to newer systems which are essential for unified communications. With a price-sensitive market, just adopting a new system overnight is not feasible, but transition in a phased manner according to the core needs is a good start.
Then there is always the experience to be gained from markets abroad. This brings us to the third key issue of government regulation, which is forcing unified communications to remain domestic and compete amongst only themselves, while it continues to dissuade MNCs from entering.

Explains Shivkumar Jagannath, CTO, Wi5, Zylog Systems India, “More than access technology, the regulatory environment prevents UC from taking-off in India. We need collaboration of people and media and not just technology, else it's a barrier. Right now, UC is only focused on enterprises; and currently, capex investment in UC is very high due to the lack of multi-collaboration. Two of the main reasons as to why government regulation is a hindrance are obligation to roll out mass telephony services in rural areas, forcing operators to contribute to the USO fund. However, this digital footprint across rural areas for e-government services and data concentration trivializes voice. Instead, if termination is allowed, collaborative communication can catch up, and will be beneficial to the government as well. Secondly, ARPUs of telcos are steadily falling, and so it is in the interest of the government to do consolidation of operators. Once this collaboration of operators for voice and data and restriction of interconnect goes, UC will get a boost.”

The WiMax Solution
According to Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO, SMS GupShup, “In its early days, Internet penetration suffered due to a low number of landlines, and building an infrastructure to support broadband has proved to be too expensive. Wi-Fi saw a lot of hoopla around its launch, but the technology is not scalable to tens of millions of users which is really the reason that is making some kind of a dent in the numbers that we see today. WiMax is thus, the first scalable wireless technology, and has significant potential to bring broadband into the homes of more people.”

The most obvious way in which WiMax can support UC is from the broadband penetration point of view and by providing far greater bandwidth which is required for high speed UC applications. Helping enterprises and operators to use existing infrastructure with the help of varying bandwidth applications, and to phase out traditional systems bit by bit, WiMax would help to save on capex, and yet deliver quality required and help operators earn added revenue by offering a UC platform for services.
Remarks KB Sanish, research analyst, networking, enterprise and applications communication, Gartner, “Awareness and understanding of long term benefits need to be established. For network constraints, WiMax can help, as also in the case of VoIP which WiMax can boost as long as the government pulls out multiple vendors for IP telephony. Interest has been shown by many foreign companies regarding investing in UC here, but cannot do so at present due to the strict regulation. From IP telephony, a lot of companies will then upgrade to UC.”

Putting it into Practice
According to Sanish, “The market is very price-sensitive, and there is a need to educate customers that this is not a one-time solution, but typically a two to five years approach, and the high costs will pay off in the long term. Thus, using only UC you need for your business will help utilize legacy networks and upgrading instead of replacing on a priority basis so that UC becomes a simplified approach will offer a timely solution. Here, application and network layer unifying for interoperability and looking at more than one vendor for different sets of UC needs is better than just partnering with a single vendor. Additionally for UC, network connectivity is very critical so WiMax can help.”
In general, the latest UC tech-trends exceedingly emphasize on making communication more collaborative, socially-aware, real-time, rich and more mobile than ever. The best developments throughout the industry include a gradual shift from device based to user based, that is truly 'real-time presence'. Also, the outsourcing model of enterprise communications with guaranteed QoS ('on-the-go') or Communication-as-a-Service (CaaS) is equally popular.

Elaborates Asheesh Pandia, communications manager, Siemens Enterprise Communications, “CaaS or cloud computing allows organizations to implement UC without spending on buying, hosting and managing communication equipments. Similarly, UC security product and solution portfolios are also expected to show a proportionate rise with the acceptance and growth in the UC market. In a typical ROTI scenario, significantly quantifiable paybacks (200% or more) could be expected over a period of nine to twelve months by means of enhanced user productivity, consolidated and 'softened' communications infrastructure, reduced out-of-pocket expenses such as carrier or traveling costs.” The Siemens OpenScape suite provides a full UC portfolio, and comprises a set of software modules that can be combined according to an enterprise's needs, and offers consolidated administration and session control for the full suite. The product is also fully standard based, all-software, highly scalable and available as a single server.

With the evolution of technology, the industry is moving away from the edge. As WiMax helps use less bandwidth and promotes interoperability between different services, UC can be used with the mobile version of WiMax — 162.E Wave 2 standards on a hand-held device. Says Shivkumar, “The mobile WiMax experience is as good as desktop connectivity, but has voice, video and data as well. Besides, mobile WiMax does not need to be in the line of sight of the nearest BTS, thus, driving the capex cost down. However, UC needs to go into the retail space, where it will find more demand for cloud and adoption on a larger scale. It will help organizations earn a higher RoI with third party linking through web-conferencing, example, the Cisco/DimDim telepresence.”

Future Impact: NGN and LTE for UC
Says Bansal, “The only way that UC can be delivered with the right quality of experience across all applications is to unify them across a NGN. These networks are built specifically for all-IP applications and therefore understand the building blocks of a UC environment. NGNs are converged networks which reduce many of the costs involved in deploying a multitude of disjointed applications. The cost of running different applications on different networks is prohibitive, while the system will struggle to bring them all together in a single unified session when required. UC, therefore, is a highly valuable proposition, but only if it is delivered correctly. If this is not done, then the communications platform cannot achieve a coherent UC service experience, and many of the expected cost and efficiency benefits will not materialize.”
According to Shivkumar, “The world is converging towards LTE, and 4G is more suitable for UC, being inherently more efficient. Post the BWA auctions, the amount of bandwidth available is four times more than 3G and rich media collaboration is provided for, including voice, data, video, high throughput and low latency. 4G will permit the permutation of a voice-call with mobile-PSTN, competing in the same arena as pure-play voice; and Trai has given recommendation that this should be allowed. UC will really take-off with this. The need of the hour is an all-IP network that offers voice, and I don't think it will take that long as most operators are keen on offering 4G and a lot of WiMax bandwidth is available. LTE would be better for UC, but non-availability of operability standards has given WiMax a two-year window. Reliance Communications and Airtel are trying out WiMax, only until till they get LTE.”

In a recent case study of UC working with LTE, Ericsson and Motorola Solutions recently announced an industry-leading LTE based solution for public safety mobile broadband, which will interoperate with mission critical voice and data to unify the delivery of high-performing voice and broadband multimedia applications. The LTE mobile broadband technology will thus allow Motorola's unified NGN platform to provide advanced communications capabilities demanded for public safety with real-time information sharing between an integrated multimedia command center and field forces. This will be done through a collaborative portfolio of rugged radios, in-vehicle terminals and hand-held LTE data devices. Ericsson, on its part, will provide access equipments as well as parts of its packet core and related services to deliver broadband multimedia services for public safety.

Thus, there is not only scope for UC with WiMax, but also for future NGN systems as and when India comes on similar interoperability platform as the rest of the world. Currently, Indian WiMax band is 2.3 standard, while the rest of the world has a 2.5 operability standard. As operators have spent crores on WiMax, they have no choice but to use this platform now and compete on a domestic level. Operators are praying that the government keeps its promises of de-regulation, thus, allowing foreign companies to compete in the UC space here as well.

Beryl M
berylm@cybermedia.co.in