I started my research today watching videos and reading blogs about the biggest worries of telecoms and thinking back on 1000s of conversations with these companies online and at conferences. Somehow I landed on IBM's BlueMix IoT demo you can try with your cell phone and another device. Nice. Gotta love IBM, the company that officially began on Valentine's Day the year Jimmy Carter and Marlon Brando were born in 1924.
Where did today go from there? Eavesdrop on traditional telecommuications companies' conversations at industry events such as ITEXPO, Comptel, PTC, Gitex, and ITW and hear numerous references to lost revenue, customer churn, outdated equipment, difficult migrations, dark and lit fiber, security issues, redundancy, and "collocation. But take note...many are getting involved in concrete ideas and services that can really positively impact individuals and groups of all types, for example, with IoT (Internet of Things, AKA M2M), WebRTC (communications over the Internet on a browser), and SIP DID (session initiation protocol). Even TMCnet (ITEXPO event producer) will include a WebRTC component with Dialogic's Alan Percy, Volt Delta's Craig DiAngelo, and Voice4Net's Richard McFarlane at its 2015 conference Oct 6 - 8 in Anaheim. They have added a Machine to Machine / Internet of Things summit to their conference set, too.
Let's start by zeroing in on Internet of Things. The International Data Corporation—premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets—predicts the number of devices connected among the Internet of Things (IoT) will be at least 28.1 billion by 2020 and will deliver a whopping $1.7 trillion to Earth's economy. Not something to scoff at.
Telecommunications operators, evangelists and developers are either quick to see the business potential of Internet of Things and machine-to-machine communications and opportunities, or they are overcome with potential customers' concerns such as loss of independence, privacy, and security. The DIDX team wanted to get a really simple summary of how IoT might be a real success tool for telecoms.
So, we talked about how it works and what it means to a small group of rather precocious children. We posed the idea of IoT and also the typical conundrums that telcos and mobile ops and voip companies have to deal with in simple enough terms, and a 9-year-old girl excitedly responded that it seems like machines are not as likely as humans to leave one phone company just because another phone company offers a cool new gadget they want or because of unhappy customer service that happens or because they want a really cool app that is only available with the other company. She said this after I let her and the other kids try IBM BlueMix's IOT view of her smart phone's movement online and posed the question of customer churn in easy to understand language.
"I love this," she said.
The thing that businesses, who enable the future communications services of people like this potential future entrepreneur, want to understand is how can M2M, IoT, WebRTC and SIP DID revive telecommunications, and how can it make customers loyal to them and make the customers' lives more convenient, fulfilling, fun, and successful while keeping trust, autonomy, and safety?
Listen to our industry's talk about how to recover from PSTN lack of popularity, and you will hear phrases like "end-to-end solutions," "virtual phone lines," and "WebRTC case studies." Is the telecommunications industry the most logical choice to team up to offer end-to-end solutions? Why not? Take a look at the conversational entertainment discovery concept with Nuance Communications and Rovi as an example of video surveillance integration via Camguard and Video Surveillance. Other cases in point include WNS's recent end-to-end customer experience solution that re-books passengers in case of delayed or cancelled flights and then, there is Broadcom's end-to-end DOCSIS 3.1 platform and Harmonic's Cable Edge business collaboration for rapid and efficient cable modem access to network resources. Don't forget the September 24, 2015 announcement that 21 Inc.'s Bitcoin Computer can be connected to a tiny Bitcoin mining set-up, preinstalled with software that lets developers to share a SAS API to a market enabling exchange value with bitcoin transactions.
WebRTC case studies have shown that the browser technology enables "housebound cancer-patients, the blind, recovering drug addicts, time-constrained parents and their community of caretakers, and healthcare practitioners" according to Tokbox. Dialogic's Jim Machi shared in a WebRTC session some examples of real uses of the technology such as offering businesses several choices of ways to respond to a customer inquiry like via Facebook Messenger's video extensions using WebRTC or as a value added service for contact centers to add video to their total communications suite.
Members of DIDX are enabled to provide direct inward dialing from 60 - 70 nations globally which augments mobile to VoIP connectivity, disposable phone numbers, vanity phone numbers, Virtual IVR, virtual presence in any of those areas of the world and the chance to mix all that up in new ways with IoT and WebRTC. What is at hand are all the possible tools to roll out unified communications services for any particular niche among industries such as gaming or transportation, among lifestyles such as tiny living or road warrior, and, well...our collective minds hold the possibilities! Wish I could tell you what all the amazing types of business that capitalize on SIP DID and virtual phone numbers in uniquel lucrative, and yes... legal ways, but I'm under NDA practically forever.
Whether the types of businesses that DIDX serves...define themselves as in the telecommunications industry or communications over IP, they are poised to potentially and effectively to be the glue that can tie together the gift of highly empowering end-to-end solutions. They can play the leading part in offering efficient data access and management, huge cost reductions, better performing devices, more effective security, simpler updates and migration as needed with closer than ever zero downtime, and a user experience only dreamed of while teaming up IoT, WebRTC, and SIP DID phone numbers to produce exciting, new and specific services for specific niches. Do I hear "channel partners" and "virtual operators"?
Selling SIM cards was yesterday's telco M2M opportunity. Today's most successful "telcos" do not even look like "telcos" anymore, not in the way traditionally defined. They capitalize on VoIP acquisitions and other empowering tech merges to provide better and cooler end-to-end solutions, the versatility of SIP DID phone lines, lucrative and user-friendly communications over an Internet browser on any device, and taking part in the provision of the next big solution in the midst of the Internet of Things. They connect kitchen pantries with online stores to replenish favorite products as needed, they connect cars with apps that keep passengers abreast of traffic and weather conditions, and they can do so much more than we imagine right now upon reading this post.
Want to develop something cool, something empowering, something positive with the Internet of Things? Play around a little at IBM BlueMix like I did today and let us know at DIDX and the world via your social networks where it leads you and what you think is possible. Don't just talk about the technical processes of IoT, WebRTC, SIP DID and such.
Share online how these technologies are creatively used to help meet all types of business, social and even personal goals. Search for me, Suzanne Bowen, at DIDX's booth 924 at ITEXPO Anaheim conference and exhibition October 6 - 8, 2015 or on B2B social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn. I and 25,000 + DIDX members are interested in your ideas and businesses and applications that leverage IoT, SIP DID and/or WebRTC. (Who knows? Maybe you'll be next in the news involving a business acquisition.)
And BTW, there's a new kid on the block at ITEXPO. It's called NFV. ;-)