Rapid advancements in cloud, mobility, artificial intelligence and networks are set to alter the UC market.
Editor’s Note: With 2017 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from across the mobile telecommunications space on what they expect to see in the new year.
Holiday music and market predictions are two things in abundant supply this time of year. And irrespective of your thoughts on seasonal tunes, analysis informing market predictions can be extremely valuable – particularly when technology is evolving at such a healthy pace. In the case of unified communications, telcos and their business and residential customers were offered a taste of what to expect in 2017 across the cloud, mobility, artificial intelligence, network transformation and team collaboration. This article takes a deeper dive into predictions for these five areas that telcos should keep their eye on in the coming year.
Shift from premise telephony to the cloud to accelerate significantly in 2017
The premise PBX or key system is becoming a relic of the past for businesses: costly to maintain, and difficult to upgrade and scale as needs change. An increasing number of enterprises are having to replace orphaned equipment unexpectedly and are under pressure to remain dynamic in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Cloud UC will account for 25% of 2017 line shipments, according to telecom and IT analyst firm MZA. And globally we estimate cloud will overtake premise shipments within four to five years. Given these timeframes and the risks and opportunities at stake, enterprise IT decision makers must take notice. 2017 may well be the year to act.
Telcos will deliver native end-to-end mobile business experience in 2017
Mobility is well established as a key priority for enterprises. This has led to a proliferation of mobile devices and the mobile phone has become perhaps the most indispensable business tool. But the user experience of real-time unified communications on mobile devices has not quite kept pace.
Today, many UC applications are so-called “over the top” – downloadable applications that use whatever data connection is available. This is adequate for messaging and file sharing, but often falls short for critical real-time functions such as voice and video. Poor mobile data or Wi-Fi connections lead to patchy connections that are not appropriate for business use.
However, in 2017 we expect to see dramatic progress led by mobile operators and device manufacturers that are implementing solutions, which deliver high quality native mobile connections and integrated business features on mobile devices. Services such as Vodafone’s One Net in Germany and Verizon One Talk in the U.S. allow a single business number to be associated with multiple devices over standard high quality mobile connections. Alongside this, device manufacturers are augmenting the native dialer with business features and providing tools for seamless integration of business apps. Notable examples are devices with native dialer support for Verizon One Talk and Apple’s recently released Call Kit integration tools.
AI and predictive analytics: changing the UC and call center game
Artificial intelligence and predictive analytics were not long ago restricted to research and highly specialized applications. Recently they have found widespread use in consumer applications such as Apple’s Siri assistant. And now they are being commercialized rapidly for a variety of standard business applications.
In 2017, unified communications and team collaboration applications will also begin to benefit significantly. AI will address many productivity paint points business users endure today – particularly the amount of time workers spend each day on the “orchestration” of work rather than the work itself. The average worker spends two hours per day just looking for information, two-and-a-half hours in meetings or scheduling meetings, two hours sending and responding to email – unproductive time that cuts into the bottom line and workforce efficiency.
Built-in AI upends the productivity time suck. For example, the ability to search through all a business user’s cloud applications to find the documents, messages, social profiles and any content relevant to the conversation or meeting they’re having enables workers to collaborate effectively within one UC application while having the relevant content at their fingertips – thus reducing the distractions and loss of productivity that can result from failed attempts to multitask.
PSTN wind-down: progress and opportunities
The public switched telephone network, the mainstay of communications for more than 100 years, is being phased out. It is an antiquated single purpose network with high maintenance costs, huge energy consumption and dwindling spare parts.
Advances in IP terrestrial and mobile networks have made them by far the preferred medium for all communications, including real-time voice and video broadband. This technological transition is also driven by powerful end-user shifts: fixed to mobile substitution and demand for high-definition multimedia services.
Regulators and service providers have been acting: Deutsche Telekom has stopped selling ISDN in Germany, has fully migrated Macedonia, Slovakia and Croatia to all IP and full migration is targeted in 2018. In the U.S., multiple transition trials are underway and major carriers such as AT&T are targeting 2020 for a complete transition. And specifically in 2017, Swisscom is expected to become an all IP provider.
We expect two major impacts in 2017: one will be a significant pickup in network transformation projects, the second will be to provide further triggers for businesses to migrate to all IP and cloud UC solutions.
Beyond enterprise messaging: integrated team collaboration and UC
Messaging applications are becoming key to how workforces communicate and collaborate now and in the future. In Mary Meeker’s “2016 Internet Trends Report,” the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist notes that “messaging is evolving from simple social conversations to business conversations.”
Some businesses have tried to reduce their heavy email usage by deploying standalone messaging applications, but the inability of siloed messaging apps to integrate with other core communications and collaboration services means that the workforce spends more time toggling between applications than actually using them productively. Not to mention the volume of messaging threads workers must manage and respond to quickly exceeded the number of emails.
Teams and individuals need to move fluidly between messaging, sharing, calling and conferencing using various media. And throughout these interactions they need access to persistent and shared context: emails, documents, contacts and past communication history.
While niche messaging players will continue to develop or acquire the missing communications components, enterprises in 2017 will gravitate towards mature and comprehensive solutions that can integrate messaging and collaboration with telephony, conferencing and other core business processes.
Scott Hoffpauir is CTO at BroadSoft, a global unified communication software as a service provider.
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