CEO, Fring: “One of the challenges of IP telephony is the quality of the last mile”

Roy Timor-Rousso, CEO, Fring is taking part in a debate on Ecosystem-Wide Service Innovation on Day Two of the LTE Asia conference, taking place on the The LTE Asia conference is taking place on the 18th-19th September 2013 at the Suntec, Singapore. Ahead of the show we find out more of his thoughts on the relationship between app developers and operators.

Collaborate or compete? What should the relationship with operators be from the OTT perspective?

The issue of cooperate vs. compete between operators and OTT has begun to settle, as an ever growing number of operators have chosen to launch a “Telco OTT” solution. Services like Libon by Orange, Tu Go and Tu Me by Telefonica and World & You by Bouygues, offer users the best of OTT and telephony worlds. Telco OTT communication services that work with any IP connection, the capability to call or message any phone number (without having to make sure that their counterpart uses the same application) and the simplicity of bundling the calls and messages with their existing mobile plan.

What are the key challenges of IP based telephony?

One of the remaining challenges of IP telephony is the quality of the “last mile” connection, especially for public wifi networks, which may be congested and struggle to provide the SLA required for real-time communications such as voice. Hopefully this challenge is being addressed by ever-faster wifi networks, growing penetration of high-speed VDSL or fibre connections and increasing penetration of low cost 3G or LTE data bundles.

How will the drive towards LTE help your business?

Penetration of LTE will further increase the availability of fast mobile internet connections, enabling higher quality voice and video codecs for a more natural communication experience. LTE should also improve the availability of low-cost mobile data bundles enabling more and more users to be “always connected”.

Do you think VoLTE will be a counter threat to OTT voice?

From a technical perspective VoLTE will enable operators to offer higher quality voice and improve their network utilisation but that may not be the determining factor. The most compelling advantage of OTT voice is the change in business model, mainly free peer-to-peer communication, no premium for international roaming and the capability to use any available IP connection such as wifi. In order to address these advantages operators that launch VoLTE may want to consider innovative tariffs for voice and roaming and allow use of alternative networks such as wifi offloading.

What are you hoping to get out of attending the LTE Asia?

With an ever growing number of operators launching LTE the event will be a fantastic opportunity to learn how these launches are impacting the user experience and create new business opportunities. We look forward to meeting with other participants for networking and sharing our success stories in the domain of Telco OTT.