A recent report from market research firm Pyramid Research confirms what many wireless service providers already know: Wireline growth has gone relatively flat in the past year, while mobile growth is accelerating, especially in developing countries. According to the report, global mobile data revenue will reach $94 billion and surpass the revenue generated by the fixed voice product segment in 2011.

Helping to drive the growth and excitement in the mobile services market are the latest 3G mobile video applications, including video conferencing, video mail, video ringback tones and IVVR (interactive video/voice response). While most operators have had amazing success with one-way video content consumption, many are still struggling to figure out how to cost effectively deliver two-way, interactive mobile video applications.

 

“One-way mobile video services for advanced 3G phones is increasingly common,” explained Ray Adensamer, senior product marketing manager at RadiSys (News - Alert), in a recent interview. “Many of us are already voracious consumers of YouTube video streaming content from our iPhones.”

“But where things get tricky,” Adensamer continued, “is when you’re trying to do true, interactive, two-way video communications. Two way interactive video applications are much more sensitive to issues like packet loss, delay and jitter compared to one-way video streaming applications.”

In response to this, the telecommunications industry has developed 3G-324M -- the 3GPP umbrella protocol for facilitating video telephony in 3G mobile networks. Essentially this is a suite of protocols (based on the ITU-T H.324 specification) used for delivering two-way interactive video in mobile networks.

 

But as Adensamer explained, because 3G-324M is a circuit-based wireless interface designed for the last mile wireless network, service providers have been challenged by the economics of scaling these services within their core service delivery infrastructures.

“If you try to do service processing with circuits using TDM technology, it gets prohibitively expensive,” he explains. “Your price per port is too high, which is why service providers can’t price these 3G mobile services economically.”

“Our solution to these business challenges is achieved using a cost-efficient IP-based video services architecture, consistent with what we’ve done with audio NGN architectures,” he continued. “3G-324M media gateways would be deployed at the network edge, which converts the 3G-324M circuits into SIP-based signaling, along with audio and video Real Time Protocol (RTP) packet streams. The RTP media streams are then cost-effectively backhauled across an IP backbone network to a central IP services core where for us it is business as usual. The IP media server, also known as the Multimedia Resource Function (MRF) in the IMS architecture, processes the audio and video packet streams as a common, shared multimedia processing element under the control of a large variety of video application servers. It is the processing of video media using IP rather then TDM technology, along with the reuse of the IP media server across a large variety of one-way streaming and two-way interactive video applications, that improves the scale economics of the overall architecture, resulting in an improved business case for the mobile operator.”

This topic will be explored in detail in the upcoming Webinar, “3G Mobile Video Services: Innovative Solutions for Mass Market Deployment,” sponsored by RadiSys and TMCnet. The informative Webinar will be presented at 10 a.m. ET (7 a.m. PT), Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009.

Geared for mobile network operators, telecom equipment manufacturers, Video over IP application developers and system integrators, the Webinar will cover how pre-IMS infrastructure choices can reduce video service delivery costs, while ensuring the scalability of these services as 3G networks evolve to fully embrace IMS and beyond. In addition, Adensamer will present examples of how different 3G video services can all be supported using a common video service delivery infrastructure and also discuss key features required in 3G MRF equipment to support a wide range of mobile telephony services.

To register for this informative Webinar, click here.