07 360 VISION 2016 TRANSCODING A LOOK AT HOW TRANSCODING CAN HELP IPX PROVIDERS CLIMB UP THE VALUE CHAIN FUTURE PROOFING YOUR Digital BUSINESS www.hottelecom.com Sponsored by: www.radisys.com www.hottelecom.com www.radisys.com EVOLUTION CREATES COMPLEXITY table of ContentS The world of telecom services is evolving In contrast, while each originating service faster than at any time in the past, as customer provider could provide the necessary expectations for always-on and faster solutions transcoding to make international calls work, Before we transcode grow with each new handset design. their transcoding requirements are more sporadic and variable, and for them investing we need to Encode... 5 In this new world, there are a plethora of in transcoding solutions is therefore less cost applications making use of the high definition effective. audio and video capabilities of modern mobile handsets. And these applications require It could be said that basic transcoding is just a data processing that would eclipse a serious necessary function to make a call work when gaming PC from just a few years back. the end devices or networks are unable to DIFFERENT APPROACHES directly establish a call. As such, it could be TO TRANSCODING 11 While this is great for consumers and the one of those capabilities that does not create industry, this evolution also comes with a any visible differentiator for IPX providers. massive increase in overall service complexity. So why should IPX providers bother when For the foreseeable future, these evolved simpler options exist? One strong driver is the handset capabilities will still need to interwork growing adoption of VoLTE services, with many CARRIERS' TRANSCODING with much less powerful earlier generation more advanced interactive services driving handset, or even a standard telephone. opportunities for IPX providers with a future- OPPORTUNITY 16 proof vision for delivering transcoding and IPX providers responsible to interconnect calls other value added services for their service between disparate endpoints and networks provider customers. could fall back to the lowest quality, lowest complexity service. However, as subscribers This 360 vision will not only explain what WHERE IS THE now demand a better quality of experience, transcoding really is, but also why it is becoming this simple route is not always the right one. increasingly important for IPX providers to VALUE? 20 support it. We will also discuss the challenges IPX providers are in an ideal position to offer related to offering transcoding services and the evolved transcoding services required for will finally outline potential real life use cases communications interoperability to happen, that will convince you to add this capability to partly because of their position as the future-proof your business. interconnecting engine of the global telecom network, and partly because of the efficiency about HOT TELECOM they can generate from sharing a transcoding Steve Heap 26 infrastructure investment across many CTO about radisys customer groups. HOT TELECOM 2 360° VISION TRANSCODING 3 TRANSCODING Simplifying the digital evolution Before we transcode we need to encode... nteractive voice and video communication services involve the exchange of sounds and images. Audio encompasses a wide range of frequencies, from sounds that we feel rather than hear, through to the highest notes that we might not be even able to discern. Our eyes see a broad range of colors and perceive Iimages in 3D. When we try to transmit this information to another location, we need a way to convert it into the basic building blocks of modern telecoms: packets of digital information. A coder/decoder algorithm (or a codec), encodes an analog audio soundwave or a video stream into 1s and 0s, for transmission across the network, so it can then be decoded to recreate the original audio or video as accurately as possible at the far end. TRANSCODING 5 www.hottelecom.com www.radisys.com CODECS, CODECS AND MORE CODECS... As a result, we have gone from a world of TDM of these encoding technologies to ensure Voice transcoding circuit networks encoded with G.711 (the basic that the latest handsets will communicate When it comes to voice, current “phones” have Although more bandwidth is available now codec which compressed a very narrow range with legacy devices, and interwork with other a defined set of codecs and service providers than at any time in history, there continues to of audio frequencies into a 64kbit/s stream), service providers that are at different stages of pre-select certain ones to be preferred. For be bottlenecks and costs associated with its to a variety of open source and commercial their network evolution. instance, 2G and 3G mobile networks use provision, especially toward the edge of mobile codecs used with IP packet networks. AMR-NB as a low bandwidth way of providing networks. basic narrowband audio service. As the diagram below explains, modern THE ROLE OF THE HANDSET Due to these constraints, codec technology codecs have managed to support a massive As customers sought out better quality, some has evolved to deliver ever improving voice improvement in quality – up to full band stereo Voice over IP calls use a signaling system service providers added a wideband version of and video quality, while compressing as – in basically the same bandwidth allocation (known as SIP) to establish and control the codec (AMR-WB) into 3G smartphones and much information as possible into the lowest as the narrow “dead sounding” audio of that the call. During call setup, these signaling provided the necessary transcoding to make bandwidth to minimize transmission costs. old telephone call. Simply put, HD voice and messages also exchange codec “capability calls between these HD enabled phones and beyond is quickly becoming the new norm. and preference” messages from the originating the older 2G/3G devices work. But another big technology change needs to equipment to the terminating device. be overlaid on codec evolution: the move from However, with the growing number of codecs With the rollout of LTE (and particularly Voice TDM to IP. TDM (or Time Division Multiplex) comes growing complexity. Service providers Each endpoint outlines the specific codecs over LTE, or VoLTE), the entire network structure basically assigns a full circuit (at 64Kbit/s) to now have to be in a position to support most that the endpoint can support in priority order. is finally being moved from its traditional TDM a voice call, and uses that If there is no match between the available architecture to an end-to-end IP environment. bandwidth to encode a codecs, the network needs to quickly insert a New codecs for both audio and video continue narrow approximation of Types of audio codecs currently in service transcoding function in the call path during call to be developed and continue to grow in the original audio. setup, to establish a call between incompatible complexity. handsets/networks. The evolution to IP packet Agile transcoding allows service providers to networks meant that carefully select which codecs to deploy in order service providers had WHAT IS TRANSCODING REALLY? to maximize utilization and minimize cost. to encode the original audio into a series of data Transcoding is the interception of the media In situations with incompatible endpoints, packets. (the voice and/or video) in real time and service providers could elect a simple strategy modifying it to make it work with the equipment to transcode any high definition source down to Voice calls in IP networks in the distant network. If the source and the lowest common denominator (narrowband are vulnerable to lost destination endpoints discover they support voice). packets, noise, delay, the same codec during call set up negotiation, and jitter (variances in transcoding is not required. However, when a While you could use narrowband end-to-end on delay), hence modern codec mismatch is identified, transcoding will a call, there are benefits to applying transcoding codecs along with the be required somewhere in the call path. and keeping the VoLTE call portion on HD transcoding functions codec. Agile transcoding would allow AMR-WB in IP networks, are also But the real value add of transcoding comes and Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) codecs to designed to compensate from honoring the best quality codec offered be utilized for better bandwidth efficiency over and minimize their impact by the source and destination to get the best the expensive air interface, and then transcode on the real-time audio call possible performance from that specific within the IPX network for connectivity with experience. session – what we like to call agile transcoding. endpoints using older handset technology. Source: opus-codec.org, Radisys 6 360° VISION TRANSCODING 7 www.hottelecom.com www.radisys.com Finally, communications app designers are options to compress real-time video into a back the quality to the level supported by depending on the case being dealt with and much less constrained on which codecs to stream of packets, making it far more complex the oldest video device on the video call, we will provide you answers to most of these use. They tend to prefer high-definition open to transcode than voice. but rather delivers the highest quality of in the remainder of our 360 vision document. source codecs, to differentiate their audio experience for the end-users when it comes quality with no licensing fees, to minimize their Yet, video is the future of communication, with to live media. costs. LTE providing the high speed IP connectivity to the handset and consumers, and a growing Going beyond the needs of end-to-end As each new technology rolls out, such as number of networks offer video over LTE (ViLTE) calling (whether audio or with video), the WebRTC, more advanced codecs are often services to their customers.