Battle over VoIP Phone Begins
neasia.nikkeibp.com
The first Internet Protocol (IP) phone numbers, beginning with "050," will finally appear in Japan in the fall of 2002. Interconnected through the IP network, IP-only phones, and personal computers (PC) and personal digital assistants (PDA) with IP phone functions, will offer the same convenience as regular old analog phones.
NTT-ME Corp of Japan will begin offering an IP telephony service in November 2002 (Fig 1). A host of other firms are expected to support the "050" service, including the Softbank Group of Japan with its BB-Phone IP telephone service on broadband, Fusion Communications Corp of Japan, which is planning to add IP to subscriber's homes on the base of its existing relay service running on the IP network, and Yozan Inc of Japan, which has been merging and acquiring Personal Handyphone System (PHS) cell phone and pager firms.
For the electronics manufacturers, the birth of IP telephony services will mean a major change in their relationship with communication carriers.
Until now, the electronics industry has essentially comprised subcontractors, making terminals and components which faithfully reflect the specifications formulated by the communication carriers. The phone companies brought together all the service elements -- verification and billing systems, networks and terminals -- to provide service to their customers (Fig 2). It was, in short, a typical example of a vertically-integrated business.
Once the IP phone business comes into its own, however, it is possible that electronics manufacturers and carriers will come into competition with each other, as the industry makes the transition to a horizontally-integrated structure. The most typical business model in the horizontal integration will be one where many companies with strengths in their core competences converge their technologies and products and offer a total solution service to customers. As a result, it is more than possible that a "Wintel" might appear in IP telephony as well.
Post-IP Phones
For the time being, though, vertically-integrated groups will develop. This is because as long as network technology, the core element, remains immature, verification of interconnectivity grouped around carriers is essential.
In fact, Fusion Communications is already moving to collect a large number of terminal manufacturers, while NTT-ME's Tetsuya Kanada, general manager, Broadband Service Innovation Headquarters, revealed, "We have entered [[into] confidentiality agreements with five terminal manufacturers, and they are making products for our service now." Yozan is also searching for manufacturers to provide terminals and servers for its services, working actively to build up partners.
As the next step beyond telephony, these communication carriers are beginning to make contact with real-time video communications service operators, to offer E-mail, World Wide Web (WWW) browsing and other IP-based services. NTT Communications Corp of Japan started the move by offering OCN VideoPhone, a PC-based video telephony service with dedicated software jointly developed with SoftFront Inc of Japan, in August 2002.
"Other very interesting possibilities are a transfer service linked to PC-based schedule management software, and call center operations through an at-home office linked to a Website," said Takeshi Kamada, manager, strategic Planning CEO Office, Fusion Communications.
Market Details Unclear
The semiconductor manufacturers have high hopes. As Masanobu Tsuruta in Broadband Communication Products, Application Specific Products Japan, Texas Instruments Japan Ltd commented, "In 2001, we shipped VoIP chips to only a few equipment manufacturers. In 2002, the number jumped to several dozen." In response to active inquiries from equipment manufacturers, more and more semiconductor firms are working on VoIP chips, creating a chaotic situation (Table 1).
While the number of manufacturers in the field is growing, equipment and semiconductor manufacturers are still unable to come up with a solid strategy for taking the personal-use IP phone terminal market. In the early stages, at least, this is because the service providers drawing up the specs for the manufacturers are still unsure as to what services they really want to offer.
It is still unclear exactly what is happening in the consumer market because most industry people feel subscribers will not switch to IP phones just for lower rates. "Right now the only real benefit of IP telephone service is lower rates," said one engineer at a major phone manufacturer, adding "Your average home phone fee is maybe 3,000yen or 4,000yen a month now, and even assuming that can be halved, the advantage for the general user just isn't very impressive when you consider the terminal price." This is why many semiconductor manufacturers agree with Hisaki Ishida, general manager, Telecom LSI Products Department, LSI Design Division, Silicon Solutions Company, Oki Electric Industry Co, Ltd of Japan, who said, "Even if we were to ship a dedicated VoIP chip for the consumer market, it isn't clear that it'll sell right now. It's much safer to sell to the corporate user market." In fact, today most VoIP chips for the consumer market are still in the development stage, not in production.
Stimulating Carriers
At last, however, semiconductor and equipment manufacturers are taking action to break through the blockage.
"We've showed VoIP chips to equipment makers any number of times, but they rarely picked them up because the service providers hadn't settled the specification requirements yet. So we tried selling directly to the service providers, letting them press the equipment firms to use the chips," revealed Junichi Imanari, field application engineer, CPG, Broadband Technology Group, Analog Devices KK. Analog Devices, Inc of the US has prototyped its own equipment with chipsets to handle not only voice but also video and music, and is demonstrating them to service providers. In August 2002 the company showed a prototype board for a state-of-the-art IP phone terminal, using the Blackfin digital signal processor (DSP) with a DSP core jointly developed the prior year with Intel Corp of the US.
Firms like Philips Semiconductors NV of the Netherlands and Italian-French joint venture STMicroelectronics, meanwhile, have developed a VoIP IC packaged with a single chip or multiple chips integrating IEEE802.11b or Bluetooth circuits, and are pushing them on the market. With these chips, they say, it is simple to make a home server capable of handling voice.
SIP, Major Contender
With the functional upgrades on the horizon, semiconductor manufacturers are working hard to make a system where their designs will be used by as many equipment manufacturers as possible. The key is the software processing the signaling protocol which strongly influences terminal interconnection (Fig 3).
This software establishes or cuts the communication, actually controlling the conversation between the two terminals. Although it is of crucial importance, some ambiguity exists in the protocol definition, and varying interpretations in implementation can prevent interconnection.
Of the various signaling protocols available, the session initiation protocol (SIP) is expected to become the most commonly used. The SIP IP telephony signal control method is defined as RFC 2543, and the Messenger communication tool that ships with Windows XP provides an IP telephony function compliant with SIP.
SIP specifications are continuing to evolve, and some people in the industry warn that this will make it difficult to maintain interconnectivity between VoIP chips running different SIP implementations. As NTT-ME's Kanada pointed out, "We don't especially recommend VoIP chips with assured interconnection performance, but if the equipment manufacturer asks us we will tell them which chips and software have demonstrated performance." The result, of course, is that once a product is adopted by one equipment manufacturer, it can spread to others rapidly.
As a result, most semiconductor manufacturers are focused on developing their own SIP implementations. Manufacturers without their own SIP software purchase it from software vendors. Broadcom Corp of the US, for example, has developed SIP processing software utilizing technology from HotHaus Technologies Inc of Canada, a specialist in signaling protocol software acquired in 1999. Late-starter Philips Semiconductors, which entered the VoIP chip market full-scale in 2002, has an exclusive license with Ishoni Networks, Inc of the US for VoIP software, including SIP processing code.
Low-Cost Terminals
Equipment manufacturers have begun to develop terminals based on PCs and PDAs that can be released onto the market immediately (Fig 4). They hope to sell the terminals to service providers, and jointly develop the consumer market.
There are two methods of market development. The first is to release inexpensive equipment and see how consumers react, and the second is to focus on the hotspot service, which is expected to show phenomenal growth in the future.
NEC CustomMax, Ltd of Japan is geared for the low-price approach. Their IP phone terminal does not handle call control or voice processing, leaving it up to an external microprocessor in a PC. The terminal can be used by NTT-ME -- with which they have a tie-up -- and related service vendors. According to Michio Mizuno, manager, Consumer Business Strategy Division, NEC CustomMax, "The street price is 5,000 yen to 6,000 yen, only about a tenth the price of other IP telephone terminals on the market."
Low price is not the firm's only goal, however, as Mizuno explained: "We still don't know what types of personal IP telephone terminals will sell. We want to make simple, cheap terminals for customers to try out, and listen to customer feedback to gradually add functions."
Compaq Computer, on the other hand, plans to use the hotspot service. The firm has already begun selling a PDA equipped with the VoIP software developed by Skywave, Inc of Japan to various service providers. The software runs under Pocket PC 2002, from Microsoft Corp of the US. At Business Show 2002, held in Tokyo in May, the software was demonstrated on a Cassiopeia PDA from Casio Computer Co, Ltd of Japan. The PDA's microprocessor was used for call control and voice processing, with no dedicated hardware circuits.
"The Neo Mobile Service offered by NTT-ME will eventually handle call control, voice handling and other processing at access points used by the hotspot service in future," commented Toshimasa Takauchi, manager, JunKan Business Headquarters 4, NTT-ME. This would mean cheap IP phone terminals used in the wireless communication environment, and make it possible for system managers to change voice processing software across the access points in one operation. This simplifies the work of system managers when updating software, for example, or responding to a bug report.
Interconnectivity, Tests
The IP phone service offered by communication carriers is launching with a number of unresolved technical issues, including interconnectivity and evaluation of voice quality needed to get a "050" number.
Until now, IP phones have had no particular problems with interconnectivity, because there were no more than a few models of phone connected in a limited-scale corporate local area network (LAN), or for PC-based phones because software could be updated easily.
As soon as service is expanded from corporate use to the general public, in the form of "050" numbers, interconnection testing becomes extremely complex, because there are many types of IP phones available to choose from. Every single one has to be tested for interconnectivity. As more manufacturers offer IP phone terminals, interconnection testing grows increasingly complex. Worse, the signaling protocol itself is being revised, demanding a retest with every new specification.
Hideaki Okuma, senior manager, Localization, Alliance & Technology, Cisco Systems KK, explained that this is because service providers responsible for choosing terminals "usually require that the terminal manufacturers verify interconnectivity with products from other manufacturers."
These tests are usually performed by third parties and service providers. Taking the example of SIP-compliant equipment, the Promotion Committee of the Harmonization of Advanced Telecommunication Systems (HATS) has attracted 18 firms to its tests, the VoIP Promotion Council 12, and Fusion Communications over 20.
In Japan currently there are basically three types of interconnection tests either in use or scheduled to enter use shortly. The first category is phase 1, which confirms basic telephony functions such as establishing a connection, holding a conversation, and breaking the connection. Phase 2 tests extra functions such as hold, transfer and facsimile, and phase 3 investigates actions such as communication through a firewall and caller identification. In the future, phase 4 will be added to check interconnection between terminals run by different IP telephony service providers.
IP phone terminals are still stuck in phase 1 (Fig 5). In phase 1 interconnection tests held jointly by the Promotion Committee of the HATS and the VoIP Promotion Council, the test sequence consists of establishing a connection between terminals, holding a 3-minute conversation, and closing the connection. This is performed for four configurations of send and receive for the open and close request signals. Delay, echo and other voice quality issues are not tested.
Phase 2 is scheduled to be offered by the VoIP Promotion Council in October 2002, while Fusion Communications is apparently the only service provider offering phase 3 interconnection testing. And even Fusion only began at the end of July 2002, for terminals linked through their IP phone network.
Vague Definitions
One of the reasons that so few manufacturers can move beyond phase 1 is that the signaling protocol itself has some vague definitions. Different interpretations by different manufacturers can still often lead to interconnection problems (Fig 6).
One outstanding difference in interpretation can be seen in the IP phone terminals using SIP as the signaling protocol. In the SIP interconnection tests held jointly by the Promotion Committee of the HATS and the VoIP Promotion Council, there were 30 cases where interconnection failed. SIP itself is fairly new, appearing in only 1999, and specifications are still being changed. A major spec change, naturally, makes it necessary to retest everything.
To improve the product completion of the SIP-compliant equipment expected to be major products in the future, however, the interconnection tests are important as testing sites to accumulate expertise. Cisco Systems' Okuma explained: "Because you handle a terminal made by a different vendor, you can exactly see faults in your own designs that would never show up when you kept testing in-house." The numbers of manufacturers participating in the tests and numbers of terminals to be tested are rising fast. For the SIP-compliant terminals expected to be the dominant design on the market, 14 firms and 23 terminals were involved in the first test in February 2002, but by the second test only five months later the number had risen to 18 firms and 30 terminals.
The industry is now considering the use of the R value as a quantitative evaluation of conversation quality, including points like voice delay and cut-out.
by Takahiro Kikuchi and Satoshi Okubo
Websites:
Analog Devices: analog.com
Broadcom: broadcom.com
Casio Computer: world.casio.com
Cisco Systems: cisco.com
Compaq Computer: ap.compaq.com.sg
Fusion Communications: 0038.net
HotHaus Technologies: broadcom.com
Intel: intel.com
Ishoni Networks: ishoni.com
Microsoft: microsoft.com
NEC CustomMax: custommax.nec.co.jp
NTT Communications: ntt.com
NTT ME: ntt-me.co.jp (Japanese only)
Oki Electric Industry: oki.com
Philips Semiconductors: semiconductors.philips.com
Promotion Conference of HATS: ciaj.or.jp (Japanese only)
Skywave: skywave.ne.jp (Japanese only)
Soft Bank Group: softbank.co.jp
STMicroelectronics: us.st.com
Texas Instruments: ti.com
VoIP Promotion Council: 211.0.28.19 (Japanese only)
Yozan: yozan.co.jp
(October 2002 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia) |
