Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Instant Voice Messaging (IVM) in the Enterprise

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:42:30 -0500

Instant Voice Messaging (IVM) in the Enterprise
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View, CommWeb.com
Feb 24, 2003 (10:41 AM)
URL: http://www.commweb.com/article/COM20030224S0001

The hot news from the big wireless show in Cannes, France, is all about the
convergence of traditional half-duplex radio walkie-talkies with VoIP-based
wireless phones. They have been calling this "Push-to-Talk" (PTT), because that's
all that a user had to do with traditional dedicated radio channels to initiate a voice
connection with everyone else on the channel. With inexpensive wireless VoIP
networks creating individual person-to-person and group connections, Wireless
guru Andrew Seybold thinks PTT may be the killer application for mobile voice
communications service providers, and all the big wireless carriers have announced
plans for offering the service to its subscribers.

Nextel has been the leader, until now, in offering PTT service to supplement its
cell-phone services, and our David Zimmer has found it to be of great practical
value in working in the field with a mobile team.

However, the new announcements by technology providers Comverse, Mobile
Tornado and others, point to more of a similarity with IP-based Instant Messaging
and presence/availability management for general voice communications than there
is for specialized radio walkie-talkies.

I hesitate to use the label "Push-to-Talk" because the industry has already been
using a similar term, "click-to-talk," to describe a more limited ability of a web site
visitor (customer) to initiate either a telephone callback, or a VoIP-based voice
connection with an enterprise contact center agent.

So, if you don't mind, I will use a more descriptive term, "instant voice messaging"
(IVM), to discuss this convergence of voice messaging, Instant messaging and
mobile phones. (Just what you need, another acronym!)

What Does "Instant Voice Messaging" (IVM?) Bring to the Table?

We have been expecting (and writing about) this development as a logical
technology step in the evolution of unified communications (UC), since it's near
real-time modality fits nicely between asynchronous text and voice messaging and
conversational voice calls. Since voice is easier and much more time efficient than
typing, it makes two-way message exchange much faster.

Voice also brings a personalized touch to messaging that makes it very attractive
for consumer use. However, as with all forms of messaging, it has primarily been
promoted by wireless providers as a means of drastically lowering the costs of
wireless voice conversations between mobile frequent callers.

To quote Nextel, "Every time you push the button, it costs a fraction of what you
might pay for a cellular call." Why else would a user put up with the annoyance of
transmission delays and the "walkie-talkie," half-duplex style of voice conversation?

The driver of UC is personal communication management for all flavors of personal
contact, including incoming and outgoing calls and messages. So, for openers,
"IVM" lets both individuals and groups "immediately" initiate a near real-time
messaging exchange in voice.

Similar to Instant (text) Messaging, in addition to exploiting the lower costs of VoIP
networking, IVM will also require individual user presence and availability
management for controlling access to a contact recipient.

Besides its role in mobile person-to-person contacts, we also see speech-based
service applications exploiting IVM channels of contact. This will provide more
immediate "push" delivery of voice-based time-critical alerts to mobile users, with
instant voice responsiveness, whenever speech modality is indicated by a recipient's
accessibility status (presence).

This would replace the traditional approach of an application process initiating a
more expensive and cumbersome phone call. It would also let such applications be
multi-modal and support either instant text or voice messages, all sharing the same
benefits of presence management.

Exploiting IP network transport will not only make such applications inexpensive to
use, but will also support more flexible and dynamic user interface choices for the
next generation of multi-modal wireless devices.

Of course, the presence/availability management concepts of Instant Messaging
(IM) apply even more strongly to voice interactions (vs. text messaging) with
people, because of the transiency of speech output and its sensitivity to the users'
surroundings. You can't listen or talk in a noisy environment, or talk when you may
disturb a meeting or when the conversation must be kept private in a public space.

The 'buddy list" approach of IM will work particularly well for groups of users who
communicate with each other constantly, and the wireless industry is targeting both
consumer groups (youth and family market segments), as well as enterprise and
organizational groups for mobile IVM services.

No Dialing, No Ringing - "Over and Out"

Comverse, in partnership with Mobile Tornado, demonstrated their "Push-to-Talk"
solution last week at the GSM show in Cannes, France. Their offering will work
across 2.5/3G, Wi-Fi, GPRS/1X/UMTS, IDEN and wired Internet networks, and
provides a visual user interface for managing "presence-based" instant voice
communications.

Following in the footsteps of traditional radio-based walkie-talkies, Comverse
touted the ability of a user to "instantly talk or chat with individuals or groups -
without dialing, ringing, or waiting for the other party to respond."

While person-to-person access to a recipient will be expected to be controlled
though presence management facilities, we didn't see any mention of modality
management (using either text or voice messages). We can't assume that because a
user is carrying a speech-enabled device, that a speech exchange is "instantly"
possible or appropriate for the recipient.

Also, while driving a car, a frequent mobile situation, a "push-to-talk" user interface
may not satisfy the requirements of being eyes-free/hands-free. The latter situation
should be able to exploit speech recognition voice commands.

The ability to start "talking ... without waiting for the other party to respond," is not
always an appropriate thing for the contact recipient. This is where unified
communications management must effectively help exploit the benefits of
multi-modal handheld devices and user interface flexibility.

Fortunately, the IVM technology providers offer a choice of two modes of contact,
which could be controllable by the recipient's "buddy list." Comverse lets the
contact initiator choose an "Intrusive" mode to start talking directly to the other
party, or a "Non-intrusive" mode to notify and invite the recipient to talk.

The Enterprise Perspective

From the Comverse announcement, their IVM offering is aimed at mobile
operators and wireless carriers who want to "offer both standard cellular and
Push-to-Talk (walkie-talkie) services that are targeted at the enterprise market, as
well as the youth and family segments."

Because wireless transport outside of the enterprise domain will have to be a
third-party network service (radio, 2.5G), mobile enterprise users will need such
services for universal communication coverage. However, with the shift to VoIP
transport, will such IVM capabilities also be practical for intra-enterprise IP
networks? If so, we then face the traditional challenge of interoperability between
enterprise communications ((CPE) and the carrier networks.

This challenge is already being addressed by Avaya, Motorola and Proxim for
seamless interoperability for conversational voice calls between (enterprise) WI-Fi
and wireless carrier networks. (See our column, The Next Big Step for UC in the
Enterprise).

Will IVM functionality also be accommodated in the same manner? What will the
value-added benefits of IVM be to the enterprise user and to the enterprise? Who
will be responsible for enterprise user presence and availability management
controls, the enterprise, the carrier, or both?

As mentioned earlier, IVM's message-oriented speech could be useful for "push"
delivery of time-critical information to user's who have enterprise applications listed
on their "buddy lists." Since applications, unlike people, should always be available
and speech input is not necessarily the best way to provide data input, the use of
IVM for mobile users with multi-modal devices to communicate with an application
doesn't seem too useful.

The option for using instant voice messaging in the enterprise environment will have
to integrate with an individual user's personal availability management of all
multi-modal communications for business contacts, rather than just verbal
socializing needs. Also, like the telephone and email, enterprise IVM will certainly
have to permit inter-enterprise communications via "buddy list" management
facilities.

Wired and Wireless Interoperability

The service providers may have postulated that everyone using their PTT services
will have to have similar - if not identical - handheld devices/features, and possibly
be subscribers to the same service. That, plus coverage, has been the
interoperability bane of the wireless carrier industry. But, wireless users had no
problems in interconnecting traditional phone calls with the wired PSTN.

Now, however, we have to consider that even though most enterprise users in the
enterprise environment may have wireless phones, will they always have to use
them, even when they are comfortably situated at their wired desktop?

Will the concept of IVM, which is certainly useful for users on the go, be practical
when one party is at a desk and the other is mobile? With UC capabilities like "one
number reach," IVM should also be an option for making contact. We would
expect that, because of IVM's dependency on VoIP, IVM should be able to
interoperate seamlessly with enterprise Wi-Fi and wired IP phone systems in a
manner similar to the Avaya - Motorola - Proxim announcement for wireless voice
connections.

What Do You Think?

Will IVM be useful on-premise for enterprise users as opposed to wireless VoIP
calls? Where should the integrated "buddy lists" for an enterprise user be
maintained? What new etiquette will be required for mobile users who cannot
always be available by voice to their "buddies?"

What other issues appear as important obstacles to implementation or adoption of
IVM within the enterprise? Will IVM be strictly a wireless carrier service for
consumers?

Send your comments to the Unified-View

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