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Validity of Mobile Video - ExpoComm Mexico 2009

Jim Machi - Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic

03/04/2009
Validity of Mobile Video

Last week I did a talk at EXPO COMM MEXICO 2009 about mobile video telephony entitled, "Mobile Video Telephony: New Services, New Opportunities." The talk went well, but it was the discussion it spurred afterwards that made it worthwhile for me.

There were a few people who wanted to debate the validity of mobile video with me. They saw it mainly as a niche kind of application as opposed to very mainstream. So we talked it through. I could see their points of view, and they saw mine, which is what discussion is all about.

Many of the same issues that I dealt with 12 years ago in the beginning of IP telephony were brought up, such as: Is the bandwidth there? Will the quality be there? How will the phone companies charge for this? The SAME EXACT issues. And we had the real discussion about whether there will finally be a true converged network as the wireless networks move to IP in the 4G timeframe. And when this happens, will the wireless providers become "bit pipe" providers and just charge a flat fee for bits per month? I am confident, given the direction of 3G and 4G, that all these issues will be resolved. After all, look at IP Telephony today ­ my kids on Xbox Live talk to their friends when playing Xbox ­ all through Wi-Fi VoIP! I think all the issues surrounding VoIP have been worked through!

As I said in my talk, at the simplest level, the voice and text applications of today can all be video enabled ­ voice mail to video voice mail, IVR to IVVR, mobile conferencing to mobile video conferencing. And there will a slew of new applications that are mobile video only, such as security types of applications where camera images can be sent to your mobile phone. Twelve years ago I had no doubt ­ NO DOUBT ­ about the move to IP telephony and VoIP. And today, I also have NO DOUBT about mobile video telephony. It's already happening. And it will happen in such a way that it will become embedded in our normal communications.

Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic, responsible for product planning, product management and marketing. Dialogic develops open systems-based telephony voice, video and signaling products for both the enterprise and service provider market segments.