ETP‘S VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF VOICE
Margit Brandl
15 -16 January 2007, Geneva - ITU
About ETP
 The ETP is a forum for the exchange of views with European
Institutions as well as international working groups. ETP
works by consensus to prepare codes of practice, guidelines
and reports.
 Membership is open to all sectors of industry involved in the
European communications market and the global information
society.
 Members represent a wide range of industry and private
sector interest groups, manufacturers and operators (both
incumbents and new entrants).
www.etp-online.org
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I. Market trends
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Several types of convergence are
all happening at same time
Device convergence
Fixed-Mobile
Convergence
Multiradio terminals,
smartphones, music devices,
cameras, game decks, PDAs
Service and application
convergence
VoIP, digital content, messaging,
push-to-talk, interactive gaming,
video sharing, video telephony
Industry
Convergence
fixed – mobile
telecom – media/TV
digital devices
Network convergence
Fixed-mobile, multi-access,
common core service machinery,
OSS and BSS
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For the industry this means
Business outlook




Very sharp decline in the number of and percentage of voice minutes
originating in the traditional fixed network.
Competitive pressures on operators will increase (e.g. mobile, VoIP,
market entry of Skype, Google, Yahoo, etc.)
… established providers might focus on access services + decision on
which and how many services in addition to offer.
World wide market instead of national or European market.
Technological changes


Voice is only a “data package” as part of broadband data exchange,
mostly IP based.
In the core network, the boundaries between fixed and mobile
technologies will largely disappear by 2010-2012. From the business
point of view, FMC offers seamless services for both mobile and fixed
users, and helps to reduce both CAPEX and OPEX.
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How will fixed, mobile and internetbased phone services converge?
Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) is a key element.


Operators can deliver a seamless and access-independent user
experience to their customers
Competition will increase.
Due to regulatory constraints and uncertainty,

fully converged services are slowly emerging: first steps: fixedmobile (home zone, one handset), fixed-internet (ADSL/cable +
POTS or VoIP) and mobile-internet (3G, data cards)
Future services will increasingly be based on IMS-like
platforms. Distinct mobile or fixed services are likely
to exist in parallel with converged services for some
time.
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Mobile phone subscriptions globally, millions
Mobile and broadband growing
4 400
4 200
4 000
3 800
3 600
3 400
3 200
3 000
2 800
2 600
2 400
2 200
2 000
1 800
1 600
1 400
1 200
1 000
800
600
400
200
0
Mobile
PSTN voice
Broadband
3 billion
by 2007
Current global
penetration 34 %
-92 -93 -94 -95 -96 -97 -98 -99
Source: EMC, Nokia August 2006
-00 -01
-02 -03 -04
-05
-08
e
-10
e
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Voice goes Mobile and IP
50/50 split
by 2007
minutes,
billion
9 000
8 000
7 000
6 000
Rapid
growth
Mobile voice traffic
PSTN voice traffic
VoIP traffic
5 000
4 000
VoIP – Rapid
growth in fixed
domain
3 000
2 000
1 000
0
-92 -93 -94 -95 -96 -97 -98 -99
Source: Nokia August 2006
-00
-01 -02 -03 -04 -05 -06 -07
e
e
Fixed to Mobile
Substitution
-08
e
-09 -10
e
e
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Are voice services of the future most likely to be billed
by the minute, by volume, or on a flat rate basis?
Unlimited flat rate already almost generalized for voice (VoIP)
and Internet connectivity on fixed networks and increasingly
being adopted on mobile networks for voice and data

The transition to a flat rate is facilitated by the huge capacity made available
on networks by recent technology improvements and by the aggressive drive
of some players seeking to build market share.
Trend towards flat-rate charging expected to continue at a
moderate pace and include national/local voice services,
internet (broadband) access and usage and multimedia/IPTV
most likely to be billed on a flat rate basis.
Billing by minute for international calls (many different
international termination rates) and by minute or by event
billing for value added services likely to continue for some time.
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II. Regulation
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Convergence: Regulatory issues
Technology
Convergence
Market
Regulation
Policy
Implications
 Substitute services
o Replacing traditional industry boundaries and
legislation
 Technology complexity
o No clear vision on future services and their business
impact
o Technology development outpaces regulator
competencies
 Market entry
o New entrants
o Competition as a driver for industry innovation and
growth
 Cross-border business activity
o Global characteristics of communications industry
 New legislation
o Spectrum
o competition
 Intellectual property
o Digital content
 Roaming and interconnection prices
o Consumption of communications
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Regulatory freedom …
Is regulatory freedom necessary to bundle voice with other services
(e.g. multiple play)?
Level playing field- respect principle of technology neutrality
 …voice shows a strong trend towards becoming an element of other
services like internet access or video/TV.
 Throughout Europe retail markets show a clear trend to competitiveness
and increasing infrastructure competition (LLU, cable, mobile ..).
Thus no operator should be hindered to offer valuable bundles to
the consumer’s advantage.
Customers should be allow to benefit from economies of scope
 Regulation should not prevent service development and integration.
 Product packages (including e.g. fixed and mobile voice or VoIP,
broadband access, TV, …) are and will increasingly be offered by nearly
all operators.
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Regulatory threat …
Threat – insufficient return on investment
 Next generation high speed fixed and mobile
broadband networks capable of supporting triple and
quadruple play offerings may involve significant up
front investments with a high degree of risk for the
involved stakeholders.
 Regulation must not hamper growth and should
encourage rollout of new infrastructure.
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Licensing
What form of licensing, if any, will be necessary for
voice service providers?
 The current EU licensing regime with a “general license” for all
services and separate licensing for scarce resources like
frequency spectrum is sufficient and should not be changed.
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VoIP
Will the VoIP service (provided on public IP network) be regulated?
 Current regulatory decisions within the EU show a tendency to
regulate only VoB services (VoIP = VoB and VoI) and especially
those provided by established operators.
 This prevailing praxis shows a biased regulation towards
European network operators who face intervention and thus a
competitive disadvantage whilst international large VOIP
providers remain unregulated and out of the scope of the
European legal framework.
 This is clearly a wrong regulatory development as VoIP services
are based on another business model than traditional voice.
VoIP for end-users is billed/integrated in access to broadband
and download volume (volume based instead of minute based
charging).
o
o
retail (price/service) regulation of voice services is unnecessary irrespective
of the technology or business model
Regulatory discrimination has to be avoided but general rules (e.g. emergency
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calls) and quality of service obligations for all VoIP providers are necessary
Numbering
Will and if yes to what extend will national numbering plans be changed? Is the creation of new international
agreements on uniform numbering feasible (beyond e.g. the European number 112)?
In the medium term there should not be the necessity to
change national numbering plans, except to add some additional
numbering ranges for new services.
 Numbering resources and functionality is sufficient, also in an E-NUM environment.
 Creation of further new international agreements on uniform numbering could be
advantageous especially for shared cost services.
On the long term geographical numbering will make little
sense and at point in time it may also be less relevant to
maintain certain number series for certain services if
convergence takes place. This may not impact on international
numbering plans
 Non-geographical numbers should be negotiated to try to come to uniform numbering
in this field.
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III. Technology
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Will new security requirements limit
development of new voice technologies?
Development of voice services, rather than voice technology,
may be impacted by security requirements.
Any review of network integrity requirements should start
with a consideration of the state of the communications
sector as is and the technical characteristics of different
networks, rather than assuming that public switched
telephone network (PSTN) requirements can be rolled onto
new networks:



Privacy of communications to remain basic right: new technologies used to
offer public voice services should offer same or better grade of privacy as
current PSTN, ISDN and mobile networks
Lawful interception requirements should apply any technology used to
offer public voice services
Network integrity requirements in IP networks requires further discussion
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What will be the requirements for
future voice terminal equipment?
Depends on definition of voice terminal equipment: wide
selection of equipment with voice capabilities (e.g. embedded in
games). Requirements on voice equipment will depend on the
application or service it is intended for.
We will see different types of terminal equipment:



very universal with possibility to process voice and data services of different
types and volumes.
On the other side as simple as possible (from user’s point of view) for those
who don’t want to use it for anything else than for calling.
Equipment incorporating different technologies (fixed line, wireless, mobile
Open standards are key for interoperability of terminal
equipment and services on an European and worldwide basis.
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THANK YOU!
Dr. Margit Brandl
Chair European Telecommunications Platform
e-mail: margit.brandl@siemens.com
www.etp-online.org
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