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Internet Communications: A Look Ahead: This is a new era in IP communications. Not a new technology (15 yrs old), but new opportunities. Enterprise: VoIP: 49% of PBX line sales are IP. Enterprise is a controlled environments. Cable: triple play: 16.5M homes using VoIP phone service. Consumer desktop: PC-based communications: Skype has 521M registered users end Q3 2009. 41% growth for the year. Skype traffic now 12% of all long distance traffic (8% in 2008), representing 71% increase. Backhaul (invisible part of IP communications): billions of minutes being carried.
Opportunities for tomorrow: video, mobile, and web. Video: user expectations were static, now video everywhere. Cameras were uncommon, now built into laptops and netbooks, low cost and broadly available. Quality: was postage stamp-sized, now VGA and high definition (HD). Network effect: used to have to “buy two,” now 34% of Skype-to-Skype calls include video (average, >50% over holidays). Allows us to bring video to new endpoints, like Skype on TV.
Mobile: 15% mobile phones sold worldwide in 2008 were smartphones, estimating 38% in 2013. Trend toward greater bandwidth, 4G LTE subscribers estimated 100M in 2014. WiFi attach rate in smartphones in 2009 expected to grow to 90% in 2014. Perfect storm: Mobile VoIP contributors include wifi, app stores, smartphones, 3G and 4G. Example: Skype partnership with Hutchinson 3 for Skypephone.
Web: line between web and real-time communication is fading: social networking is person to person, IM in browser, Google wave and real-time text, voice and video in HTML5, web applications as interactive as desktop apps. Web of tomorrow will have a voice: voice and video seamlessly integrated, web apps becoming collaborative (e.g., e-commerce), “voice connect” bridges communications with 3rd party apps, and browser becomes universal client. (?)
Question: how does Skype make money? Paid products like Skype out is highly profitable, $800M/year.
Q: Capacity requirements? Very elastic, Skype will scale back as needed.
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