On October 4th, I will be speaking at the Mobility Tech Conference and Expo in Austin, Texas.
The title of the talk is called “When Visions Collide” and the abstract reads in part “Do service providers have the ability to make the transition to video calls or should we accept that these calls are going to be ‘Over the Top’?”
I’d like to explore that topic a bit in this blog prior to the talk next week. First of all, I would claim there are three types of providers who can deliver mobile video communications, each with different value propositions:
- Traditional Voice Conference / Video Conference Vendors – I want you to think about being at work and getting on a conference call right now. You probably have an option to dial into a bridge from one of these vendors. Video could be delivered the same way. Right now, there could even be an expensive specialized video conference system for business use. But what I’m talking about is dialing into a “video” bridge, using the service provider network. This type of setup could handle different types of devices, from different networks and not just be limited to the specialized equipment.
- Over the Top players - This is obviously available today at a low cost. I’ve even used Skype with my kids! But there is a limited ability to control quality with this proposition.
- Service Providers - They could deliver it themselves, or could deliver it via a partner as described in the first scenario. This can also be an innovative and low cost option, but with the added ability to control service (maybe for a higher cost).
So, out of these three types of providers, who is in the best position to provide video communication services? Gotta come to my talk!
