Imaging to change telecommunications
nst.com.my
By AIMIE PARDAS
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. In telecommunications, pictures, or graphics, have only started to be one of the forms of communicating through a mobile phone, besides voice and text messaging. Frost & Sullivan’s mobile communications programme leader Carles Ferriero says the influence of imaging on services and equipment markets have been quite modest.
“Until recently, network speeds were not sufficient to send and receive images at a shorter time and in a more cost-effective manner, and devices were not powerful enough to display them, much less capture and manipulate them.” However, the industry may be at a turning point as carriers worldwide are starting to deploy the multimedia messaging service (MMS) infrastructure, with some services already available in the market.
For example, South Korea and Japan have been quick to deploy and eager to showcase camera-phones and photo messaging, to overwhelming consumer response. In Japan, photo messaging and camera-phones have been a key contributor to KDDI and J-Phone overtaking DoCoMo for the first time in Net subscriber additions, Ferriero says. “We are seeing interesting changes in markets where these services have been around. Consumers have embraced these services very quickly. “The use of images is very powerful and creates significant emotional connections. It seems to be true that a picture is worth a thousand words, and users are happy to pay a lot less ?? to send and receive images.”
Consumer application.
However, imaging in telecommunications seems to be more for the consumer than the enterprise market. “In the enterprise, the return is not so clear. There may be opportunities in specific sectors, but MMS seems to remain by and large a consumer application,” Ferriero says, adding that imaging will be a key element in the future of mobile communications. “If the projections of the industry are correct, MMS could dramatically change the way we interact with our phones, the way we communicate with others and could also change the size of our phone bills!”
Meanwhile, Ovum Asia-Pacific senior analyst Jeremy Matthews says while current imaging capabilities have given users a much richer experience, imaging in telecommunications will probably be more prominent from the MMS angle. “We will see serious development with changes expected in six to 18 months, particularly MMS in Asia-Pacific and Western countries,” he says. Ovum forecasts that almost nine billion MMS messages will be sent worldwide this year, with the number almost tripling next year. In Malaysia, Ovum reckons MMS will start in 2004, when about 17 million messages are expected to be sent in a year, compared to a global market forecast of about 70 billion MMS messages in the same year. The number is expected to grow almost nine times in 2005 in Malaysia, but the number of MMS messages sent is expected to grow at a declining rate in the next two years.
Business usage may be restricted, but Matthews does see some businesses that can take advantage of the ability to see images through the mobile phone. For example, a salesman who needs a map or an emergency medical personnel who needs instructions are potential users of the technology, he says. And these people may use other mobile devices such as personal digital assistants embedded with general packet radio service (GPRS) and better screens. “As long as they are prepared to carry around something bigger,” Matthews says.
“Mobile is unique, in it is a very personal device and not usually shared. You can be anywhere and as long as the image does offer convenience, then absolutely,” he adds. Imaging in telecommunications is going to be big, but there are still a few things that need to be improved such as handsets, network and content. However, the next two to three years will see more experimentation, Matthews says.
Global standards.
Several mobile phone manufacturers are using Sun Microsystems’ Java 2 platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) software for their mobile phones such as Nokia, Motorola and Siemens. Sun introduced the J2ME software to provide Java technology solutions for a post-personal computer world. J2ME technology maintains the qualities of Java and addresses the consumer space, and covers appliances from smartcards to pagers to set-top boxes. Possible Java applications on the mobile phone include games and news feed applications such as stock information or news within a self-contained application. Sun Microsystems’ wireless business group senior technologist Johan Fantenberg believes that there will be a push for developer standards within Java to allow Java clients to interact with MMS. For example, Java can be used for mobile photo albums and is suited for mobile commerce (m-commerce) services. The lack of standards is where Java can come in. “Java is a common process driving the global standards. Therefore, working in Java would be of value so developers can focus on developing applications and not on different standards,” Fantenberg says.
Most of the applications are expected to start with leisure infotainment, but can be used for the mobile workforce who needs to inspect or inform something, he adds. However, there is a need to have a one-step process to access the information, an understandable billing model. It is also important not only to go for global, well-known content, but also for regional and local content, Fantenberg points out. |
