Contributed by DeWayne Nelon, President and CEO, Ortiva Wireless

MobileVillage, March 8, 2007 -- Information and communication are the lifeblood of any enterprise. Business does not carry on without them. The efficiency and the efficacy of the tools of information and communication are what give the enterprise the flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, minimize the cost of adaptation, and dynamically adopt new strategies and tactics to cope with threats and capitalize on opportunities. As carbon paper gave way to copiers, typewriters to word processors, faxes to email, and fixed line to mobile, so will we see video communications become an indispensable tool of business.

Indeed, fixed line video communications has already begun to permeate the large and small enterprise in the form of private line and Internet-based video conferencing and net-meeting software and services. Where used effectively, these tools cut travel cost and time, and provide that nuance of communication that audio-only conferencing just cannot. However, such tools usually place a burden on the users such that they would not really be considered "on demand," i.e., a certain amount of forethought must go into their use in order to gain the desired benefit.

Some applications for video communications require spontaneity and mobility that fixed line video will never provide. For example, consider the technician dispatched to solve an unknown technical problem. Ideally, the technician will have all the skills and tools to diagnose the problem, identify a solution, and implement it in the field autonomously. In reality, the technician may require headquarters support for all three facets of troubleshooting. Identifying the problem may be difficult without support; the solution may require a level of skill beyond the technician's; implementation of the solution might require a level of coaching.

This is an area where two-way mobile video communications can provide great benefits at a surprisingly small cost. Video cameras of surprising quality equip many phones that are capable of live transmission. Streaming video players on these phones are capable of displaying still and moving images of a repair procedure. A field technician can be tethered to an enterprise's accumulated knowledge, ensuring efficiency and accuracy in the repair process using the tools that the technician most likely already has. All the enterprise needs is a mobile data plan and a server!

Well, maybe it isn't quite that easy or everyone would be doing it now.

There are challenges to mobile video that are very similar to the challenges faced by fixed line video many years ago: jerky motion, pixelation, small picture size, poor audio, etc. Most of these challenges have been solved for fixed line through more efficient encoding techniques and by throwing tons of bandwidth at the problem. While it would appear the same solutions would apply to mobile video, with 3G networks here now and 4G networks on the way, in truth mobile video presents challenges that aren't as easily addressed.

Foremost on the list is the inherent variability of mobile networks. Radio signals are highly variable and are affected by nearly everything in the environment: buildings, people, trees, passing automobiles, etc. The bandwidth being delivered by a 3G network at any given moment may arrive at a mobile phone as 500 kilobits one second and 50 kilobits the next. Additionally, someone standing three feet away may have a completely different bandwidth experience due to this variability. As more bandwidth is provided, the total variability increases, so increasing the average doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

This network variability leads to the kinds of aberrations that make mobile video useless for the applications being discussed. An unreliable tool is no tool at all. Fortunately, video transmission technologies exist that smooth out the effects of network variability and provide a reliable, elastic experience for the user.

One such technology queries the network before initiating a session, and picks a suitable bit rate for transmitting video frames. Working with the client player on the mobile phone, the video server streams at that bit rate, periodically re-querying and re-adjusting the bit rate for the conditions being experienced. This technique is called "bit stream switching" because it pre-creates multiple versions of the video asset prior to streaming and switches between versions dynamically. This technique suffers from high latency when applied to live video streams, such as live communication between the remote technician and headquarters support staff. It relies on a client player being aware of the stream switching protocol, and can be slow to adapt to highly variable conditions that unfortunately are more the rule than the exception.

A more successful technology approach reconstructs the video from its constituent components on the fly, adapting much more rapidly than stream switching technologies, and providing an acceptable video experience down to very low bit rates on standard client players. This approach measures both the network bandwidth and the radio noise reported by the player in real time. It then encodes the video by adapting the encoding bit rate, the frame rate, frame compression, and the frame type to be appropriate for the real time network conditions. Under high bandwidth/low noise conditions, a full frame of video may be sent at a high frame rate, such as 20 frames per second, which is near-full motion. Under high bandwidth/high noise conditions, a full frame may be sent at a lower frame rate, like 7.5 frames per second, impacting the smoothness of the video but maintaining its quality and integrity. Under low bandwidth/high noise conditions, frames capturing just the delta-motion may be sent, creating a perception of fluidity while again maintaining video integrity.

In our field technician example, the headquarters support staff can stream video clips of repair procedures to the field tech's mobile phone, and by applying the proper delivery technology, the clarity of the video is such that it ensures an accurate representation of the repair technique. This cuts time and cost from the service call, and helps ensure that follow-up calls are not necessary.

The tools to make truly mobile video communications possible are in the enterprise toolkit today. The applications for mobile video are real now, as are the technologies to make it viable. One suspects that in the future, mobile video will be spoken of as having the same transformational power as email or word processing.