By Robert Fleming, Regional Sales Manager, Jinny Software

As communications technologies continue to converge, competing IT and telecommunications services are offering an ever-increasing array of messaging and traditional voice variants for all. However, to assume users understand the merits, limitations and costs of the options available would be incorrect. The following article provides insight into the growing complexity of convergence in the messaging domain.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of converged messaging is to be able to provide users with ubiquitous access to all available services and to simplify the technical skills required in using any or all of them. Subscribers want to be able to use any device to access services, with an associated pricing model that is both transparent and represents value for money. Depending on the kind of device being used and who is being contacted, subscibers want to be able to choose any preferred communication service, easily. Users may not always want to rely on SMS for messaging simply because they are familiar with how it works, they may also want to use other services if these are better suited to their intentions or communication requirements.

“Subscribers want to be able to use any device to access services, with an associated pricing model that is transparent and which represents value for money.”

The challenge arising from the creation of a user-friendly, multi-service technology that is consistent across subscribers’ multiple mobile devices represents the main issue of converged messaging. Messaging must deliver solutions to address this challenge in the years to come.

What Services will Succeed?

We cannot predict the future without building trends based on historical facts. On a daily basis, people all around us use a range of fragmented services to communicate. They use fixed, mobile and VoIP for voice calls. They use email for exchanging data and factual text. They use multiple IM services for chatting, SMS for brief informal communications and MMS primarily for sending images to each other.

Mobile operators currently only offer a subset of these services, which are often limited like email and MIM. Over the next couple of years, greater access to video services and quantum leaps in terms of service offerings via technologies such as AGPS (Assisted General Positioning System) could potentially place even stricter limitations on the most advanced services, ultimately stifling their growth.

If focus is placed only on messaging, significant possibilities exist for growth in facilitating access to SMS, MMS, Video/Voice Messaging, MIM, unrestricted access to multiple Email variants, and so on. A shift is, therefore, needed from the unified messaging concept, which is all about technological inter-working, to a concept that is more focused on wide-scale subscriber access - universal messaging.

Other Relevant Trends

"Further growth can be achieved as a result of multiple devices being used by individual subscribers, as well as machine-to-machine generated traffic."

Messaging is currently dominated by P2P and Content Push/Pull services. Increased MMS usage and future video messaging will exponentially expand the range of Person-to-Machine or Machine-to-Machine services on offer. For both one-way and interactive, session-based applications the possibilities for mobile usage remain largely untapped. Whether paying bills, switching on household lighting when away from home, automatic electricity meter reading and countless other daily applications, there are enormous revenues to be generated from the application of wireless communications to many everyday scenarios. In Europe, many countries have reached saturation in terms of 80% plus of the population carrying mobile phones. However, further growth can be achieved as a result of multiple devices being used by individual subscribers, as well as machine-to-machine generated traffic.

Addressing Future Challenges

The mobile industry needs to accept that awareness of technology does not imply understanding. Subscribers want messaging to be intuitive and personalised to the extent that all services can be easily used and not inhibited by complexity or fear of costs. Once that happens, subscribers will access services more regularly and the result for operators? Greater revenues. And whether their operator facilitates or hinders access to these services of choice, a subscriber who likes to use a third-party VoIP or email will continue to use these services, regardless. And by facilitating access to services that are already dominant, e.g. certain VoIP services and Internet mail, operators can generate further revenues.

Common Interfaces, Multiple Devices and Data Storage

The access interface used on mobile ‘phones’ has become increasingly tedious. There are simply too many menu options and each messaging variant tends to have a different collection of options and settings. Lessons should be learned from the lack of user friendliness of the character-based PC applications that were prominent in the early-90s. To combat those issues, Apple and Microsoft created the more user-friendly windows interface, which had the same look and feel across all applications. The windows and office front-ends are just an access layer that sits on top of character-based applications. Word and Excel succeeded and became dominant due to ease of use, whilst Wordstar and SuperCalc faded. The lesson here is that if something is easy to use, it will prevail – even if familiarisation exists, users revert back to CTRL+C/CTRL+V keystrokes!

"As a subscriber’s requirement for MIM, Video, and other applications increases, then they will expect and be prepared to use even more wireless devices to support their communication needs."

There was also a time when operators wanted every member of the population to have one mobile phone. Now that almost everyone in Western Europe owns a mobile, operators actually need people to carry multiple or multi-functional devices to continue growth. Purpose-specific devices like Blackberry partially address this challenge with an opportunity to create a second and separate non-competing revenue stream. There are still plenty of users who like an email device with a full QUERTY keyboard and a phone with a standard number panel and will happily pay separate fees to have both. However, as a subscriber’s requirement for MIM, Video, and other applications increases, then they will expect and be prepared to use even more wireless devices to support their communication needs.

Such a multi-device future poses further challenges of data storage, for as subscribers begin to use multiple personal electronic devices (PEDs), it may be the case that these PEDs need to become more client/server based, from an architectural perspective. Should a user’s data be stored on the network and their handheld device simply facilitate a view of this data? Ideally, yes. To illustrate this point, currently when an SMS is received, it is viewed on the terminating PED only. However, if a subscriber has multiple PEDs, all but one of these is useful once that SMS is received. If, however, all data were stored and viewed from a single network location, this would enable all of a subscriber’s devices to view that SMS and take action, such as reply and forward, thus making multiple PED usage more acceptable.

Personalisation

Building on the client/server concept, the network could also store details related to a user’s personal preferences, bringing personalisation to the forefront of the user experience. If a subscriber has multiple devices accessing multiple services, the network will hold some intelligence related to their preferred service per PED. An operator can easily capitalise on this subscriber profile information and use it to pitch targeted marketing messages and services based on what they know of the subscriber’s preferences.

Contact Groups & Advanced Location Possibilities

The possibilities that will evolve from ‘IM Buddy’ lists and advanced location services create an extra layer of possibilities that can be used to dictate what messaging format is preferred and whether or not each individual wishes to be available continuously, or occasionally, to receive messages. The concept of ‘messaging time’, when people are focused on messaging in a similar way to ‘email time’, should be embraced.

The Road Ahead

"Where multiple services exist, the ability to personalise these based on access device, usage history and subscriber settings becomes increasingly important."

In practical terms, converged messaging meets the challenge of overcoming the need for user knowledge related to legacy telecommunications (SMS, MMS, Voice Messaging) and IT (IM, Email, Video Download) services, by providing a common set of wireless access capabilities to the full spectrum of available services. Where multiple services exist, the ability to personalise these based on access device, usage history and subscriber settings becomes increasingly important. New technologies will create new messaging possibilities – some will involve new messaging formats, such as video, others will enrich all existing formats, such as assisted GPS.

The future of messaging is converged and personalised. Its success, in terms of service usage, however, will depend on messaging being kept simple and intuitive as the range of available services and technology options increases.

Robert Fleming can be contacted on info@jinny.ie.