Aylus Networks Making Big Splash in the Market with its Two Latest Innovations

Video calling just got a whole lot easier thanks to Aylus Networks (News - Alert), a provider of infrastructure for enabling live mobile video services, as the company unveiled its interconnected mobile video calling platform, the Aylus Video Platform. The Aylus Video Platform will serve as an interconnect gateway to allow service providers to make mobile video calling work seamlessly across different services.

“The concept of only being able to reach a limited number of people because you can only call phones that are of the same type, on the same network, or use the same calling software, is completely alien to modern day mobile phone users,” Bob Last, vice president EMEA Aylus Networks, told TMCnet when asked of the importance for a video calling interconnect server. “But that is the way most mobile video calling services work.”

According to company officials, today’s mobile video communication landscape is predominately categorized by over-the-top (OTT) services and communities of subscribers. And, over the next year, many of the Tier-1 carriers will release network-based video calling based on the VoLTE and IR94 specifications. As a result, a more complex world of video calling will be created, replete with many video clients on a host of devices that are unable to place video calls to each other. 

In order to drive “mass-market adoption of new mobile video services,” this needs to change, according to Mark Edwards (News - Alert), CEO of Aylus Networks. The Aylus Video Platform sets out to lead this change by offering a platform that can handle the inter-exchange among the different video calling services and networks so that operators and service providers can offer unconstrained video calling services.

“If we want to drive mass-market adoption of these new mobile video services, then making a video call needs to be as easy as dialing a phone number or clicking on a contact,” Last said. “With a video calling interconnect server handling the inter-exchange among the different video calling services and networks, operators and service providers can offer video calling services that work across different OTT and carrier calling services, over different networks. Only by making video calling as intuitive and simple to use as voice calling will we be able to drive mobile video calling into the mass market — benefiting the service providers, OTT vendors, consumers and enterprises using the services.”

This week, at the GSMA (News - Alert) Mobile World Congress show taking place from Feb. 27 to March 1 in Barcelona, Spain, Aylus will be demonstrating its video platform, which officials hope will emerge as a leading interconnect gateway.

Thanks to the Aylus Video Platform, consumers can enjoy video calling services with anyone they want because of the platform’s unique ability to serve as an interconnect gateway. The platform also ensures that the signaling and video are converted for the different services and CODECs at each end and that video usage is tracked and can be billed correctly.

“With the Aylus Video Platform handling the inter-exchange among the different video calling services and networks, operators and service providers can offer video calling services that are not constrained to particular groups of friends or family members who happen to be on the same network or using the same video calling client on their devices,” Last said.

In addition to unveiling its interconnected mobile video calling platform this week, Aylus also announced the world’s first live mobile video sharing to Facebook, Twitter (News - Alert) and other social networks through the Aylus Video Platform. With the platform, mobile operators launching Rich Communication Services (RCS/RCSe) this year can transform the impact of video sharing by enabling everyone, even if they don’t have an RCSe-enabled mobile, to receive shared live video content.

“Live video has always been special – the immediacy of live video is unlike that of recorded video for sharing special moments or unfolding events,” Last said. “However, until very recently, mobile networks had insufficient uplink bandwidth to support live video. 2011 has seen mobile uplink data speeds increase, and has also seen social networks such as Google (News - Alert)+, Twitter and Facebook embrace live video. In addition, smartphones with high quality video cameras have become increasingly common among Generation Y – the sharing generation. All of this is driving a growing need for tools that enable everyone to participate in live mobile video, regardless of the network they’re running on or the video client on their device.”

By using the Aylus Video Platform, consumers can share live video on a social network during a voice call, from any client on any mobile device. The platform accomplishes this by detecting the video capabilities of the receiving device, which can be any mobile (or fixed-line) Internet-enabled device with a media player (mobile phone, PC, Mac, tablet, TV, etc.), and optimizing the real-time video for that device.

The platform identifies the device capabilities of each viewing device and transcodes, transizes and transrates the live video in real time so that it plays optimally on that device.

“Aylus is providing a unique platform that enables operators and service providers to build video sharing services that work the way consumers and enterprise truly want them to work,” Last said. “With the Aylus Video Platform, carriers and service providers have the technologies they need to market and make a success of new live video services. Users can share live video easily and intuitively –with their friends and colleagues, and on their social networks – while multiple parties can view live video that has been optimized for each end device.”

“Live video sharing is a rapidly growing market, and Aylus is providing the tools to enable everyone to participate in live mobile video, regardless of the network they’re running on or the client on their device,” he added.

For more on Aylus, click here.