Blog Post

This post is part of a three-part series on Big Data:

1. What does Big Data mean for Telcos?
2. How Big Data will Change Contact Centres Forever
3. Big Voice – a Case Study on Tackling Autism

Big Data is a subject currently receiving substantial attention within the communications and technology sectors. With its potential role in the development of the Internet of Things and smart cities, two of the most talked about topics in the industry, the buzz is not surprising. But what actually is Big Data, and what does it mean for technology? Most importantly, what role will it play as technology drives us towards the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’? Here, we strip Big Data down to the basics and explore its potential.

As is always the case with industry trends and buzzwords, ‘Big Data’ is a very vague term, often utilised to aid sales without honouring the true meaning. Put simply, it is exactly what it says on the tin – large volumes of data, or more specifically, the large volumes of data that flood businesses on a daily basis.

But what does this actually mean? Big Data cannot be simplified by defining it as large volumes of data; the true value lies in what is done with the data, and what value businesses can draw from it. Properly used, Big Data can be a gold mine of business insights. However, the volume of data that is collected every day is enormous, and to be able to discern any insight from it, appropriate management strategies are a necessity.

Infographic from Business2Community

The concept of Big Data first gained attention in the early 2000’s, when industry analyst Doug Laney defined Big Data in terms of the three V’s – a definition that is still in use today:

1. Volume – large amounts of data are collected daily from a variety of sources, all of which must be processed
2. Velocity – data streams flow into businesses at incredibly high speeds that must be matched in their processing.
3. Variety – data is collected in a wide range of formats, including structured – numeric data in databases, and unstructured – email, video, financial transactions and more.

In today’s increasingly digital world, at the beginnings of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, the volume of data that is created and stored worldwide on a daily basis is inconceivable. Business data has increased in volume, velocity and variety, and it is this increase that is the true meaning and relevance of Big Data.

Image from Soft Computing and Intelligent Information Systems

Big Data is capable of providing indispensable business insights as long as it is efficiently managed. Smart analysis of the data can assist enterprises in making businesses decisions that could ultimately result in cost reductions, time reductions, new and optimised product development and streamlined business processes. Furthering its potential are companies who are combining Big Data with high-tech analytical solutions, to discover information that is even more powerful and insightful. The use cases are limitless, including:

1. Diagnosing the cause of system failures quickly and efficiently
2. Generating recommendations at the point of sale, based on the customer’s buying habits
3. Detecting fraudulent behaviour fast and resolving the issue before your business is affected
4. Many more

An example of a company that is a Big Data success story is Uber. Monitoring use of its application by both drivers and users, Uber has mapped a real-time logistics flow of human transportation. This use of Big Data has enabled Uber to enter new markets and continually regenerate the company and their revenue streams. Uber are the perfect example of how the potential lies not in the volume of data, but in its management, and they used it for a very simple purpose – to dispatch cars to the right users. With this simple yet powerful use of Big Data, Uber have grown into a company that is currently dominating the consumer transportation sector.

The final question is how to build solutions that enable enterprise users to utilise Big Data and maximise business productivity. Maximising its potential could open telcos up to new revenue streams, and provide them a gateway to smart cities and the Internet of Things, which will further their growth trajectory infinitely.

Only 0.5% of business data is currently being analysed; providing significant opportunity for telcos to deploy Big Data solutions that assist enterprises in business decisions. Telcos need only tap into the potential to gain access to unlimited numbers of new clients and profit opportunities. Even more significant for telcos is Big Voice, a solution that provides deep insights into customer communications, going beyond simple statistics. Big Voice enables telcos to deduce a customer’s communication pattern by analysing their call times, locations and more. This information helps telcos to gain an understanding of individual customer activity, and to then cater solutions to fit these requirements. Organisations can also use recorded data to analyse the sentiment of their customers and internal communications and keep a catalogue of smart, searchable call recordings. Ultimately, Big Voice turns audio and call recordings into rich business assets, enabling companies to streamline and improve business processes, ultimately increasing the likelihood of retaining customers.

The role that telcos must play in Big Data management, what it will mean for call centres and similar businesses, and the future of communications once Big Data and analytics solutions are partnered, will be addressed in the second post in the series.

Simetric aim to converge service providers and provide users with a unified solution for their individual correspondence. They have utilised multiple mobile networks across the UK to develop a standardised network, enabling users to bene t from a single telephone number for both their mobile and fixed phones. To expand their UC solutions for business customers, Simetric chose Dubber.

“The Dubber platform and SaaS business model perfectly complement Simetric’s technologies. Simetric and Dubber share the same desire to continually work to develop and engineer innovative new products that revolutionise the telecoms industry. Through the partnership, we can now deliver a seamless integration of uni ed communications and call recording into both fixed and mobile services.

Dubber’s Playback service changes the face of mobile telephony in our view. It is the type of feature that highlights the value of our UC strategy and opens up significant opportunities to engage with all users in every market segment.”

John Murray, Director of Simetric Telecom (Tango Networks)

We surveyed a sample of SMBs across the US with questions related to SMB call recording, and found some rather revealing results. After analysing the survey, it became clear that many businesses who could benefit from call recording do not use it, and often they have chosen not to because of concerns that only apply to legacy call recording solutions who rely on hardware. The survey results indicated a large target market for call recording that is yet to be tapped. Based on the results of the survey, this is where we think telcos are missing a trick.

Previous research from Harris Interactive indicates the importance of customer service – up to 60% of customers would prefer to pay more for better customer experience, and most significantly, 86% of customers left a company because of a bad experience. These statistics prove that providing excellent customer service is still high priority for all companies and, as call recording is widely used for quality assurance purposes, these statistics also demonstrate the importance of taking measures such as call recording to improve customer experience.

Yet the results of our survey demonstrate that, although 93% of SMBs conduct business over the telephone, a staggering 81% do not use call recording solutions from telcos for their business. When asked why, the survey (in which it was possible to select multiple answers to the question) found that 41% worried it would not be useful, which indicates a lack of education or efficient product marketing by telcos. Majority at 43% said cost was a factor. A further 39% worried about losing time to maintenance, and 35% were concerned about the security of call recording. A staggering 84% were concerned about all of the above.

However, 90% of those who don’t use call recording have concerns that actually only apply to legacy call recording solutions. Dubber has transformed call recording and communications capture to a cloud based platform, thereby eliminating the problems that relate to traditional call recording solution. These concerns are over security, implementation costs, usefulness and management.

The survey also revealed industry insights into what companies would use call recording for, and therefore provides interesting insight for telcos into the market for additional call recording functions. The survey, where it was again possible to select multiple answers to the question, found that the majority (58%) of SMBs indicated they would use call recording to improve their business’ customer service, whilst 43% would use it for dispute resolution, and the same again would use it for staff training. Interestingly, of the 43% who would use call recording for dispute resolution, 44% would be interested in smart search as an additional feature. Smart search features allow users to conduct advanced searches of their captured conversations and locate calls by various metrics that include date, location and keywords. They are a valuable tool for dispute resolution, as this relies on efficiently locating the correct information. For a survey that provided no additional information about call recording additional features, this percentage is high and demonstrates a significant target market. With some education on the benefits, this number could only increase.

Additionally, of those who would use call recording to improve their customer service, 28% would be interested in voice analytics as an additional function, which essentially act as a Shazam for human emotion. Voice analytics tools would serve a significant purpose in customer service, by providing insight into customer communications. Support and sales teams using voice analytics therefore gain an advantage in the provision of good customer service. Again, this is an encouraging start point for a target market, and will only increase as the true value of voice analytics becomes better understood by clients.

The results of the survey show that there is a large and untapped target market for call recording, with over 22.5 million SMBs in the US frequently conducting business over the phone, but not using a call recording service. The survey also demonstrates that this shocking number is in fact a result of concerns that only relate to legacy call recording solutions. As we have seen, over 22.5 million SMBs in the US are not currently using call recording, even though it could improve their productivity and increase their revenue. With Dubber, these SMBs have access for the first time to a call recording solution that has unlimited scalability, high security, rapid deployment, no upfront costs and increased relevance and functionality for everyone. Call recording is therefore an opportunity for a brand new client base for telcos: with a large target market and innovative new technology to offer them. Survey says… it’s a no-brainer.

Since the first mobile generation was released in 1982, a new generation of mobile has followed approximately every decade, the most recent being 4G in 2012. As soon as the dust settled on the release of 4G however, talk became focussed on the next generation. Only 3 years later, 5G is among the hottest topics in the industry. With Telstra recently completing successful trials in Australia, expectations for the capabilities of 5G are high. Set to become available to the public in 2020, the potential of 5G is drawing closer – and it is not just telcos who are excited.

The Possibilities

The 5G upgrade will be achieved in one of two ways: either as a complete redesign of the radio spectrum that previous generations have built on, or as a more simple extension of the current 4G technology. 5G is aiming to improve not just speed, but capacity and latency as well – allowing users to experience browsing with less delay and unlimited connections. This crucial difference will ensure that 5G speeds are not just a slight upgrade, but light years ahead of the current technology.

Recent testing by Telstra shows 5G is capable of speeds greater than 20 Gbps, as well as a latency that is up to half of that of 4G networks. Dr Magnus Ewerbring, Ericsson’s chief technology officer in Asia Pacific and a partner of Telstra, said of the tests: “these early 5G trials will help drive the global standards that will ultimately cover 5G.” Hypothetically, these speeds would be fast enough to download 600 movies a minute, or the entire 6 seasons of Game of Thrones in less than 20 seconds.

These tests seemingly indicate that 5G will bring vastly improved speed, latency and capacity, as well as assisting the growth of the Internet of Things from present day figures of 6.4 billion connected devices, to a projected 21 billion by 2020. Use of the IoT is on the rise, as a number of companies have begun to experiment with its potential. Coca Cola for example, currently use microchips to track their bottles, and Amazon have introduced ‘Dash Buttons’ – which allow users to restock their favourite household products, such as Andrex and Ariel, at the touch of a button. The true potential however, is yet to be tapped. Ultimately, 5G could revolutionise the industry, bringing not only fast and highly accessible cellular browsing, but also bringing the full functionality of the IoT into our everyday lives. Ultimately, 5G will aid the creation of a digital society and economy that could connect limitless numbers of devices through one network.

For telcos, 5G represents a future revenue channel with abundant possibilities. Recently, smartphone users have been taking advantage of improved wifi capabilities, which has decreased data usage and resulted in some lost revenue for telcos. 5G represents a way to interest smartphone users in cellular browsing once more, and hence replace this lost revenue. However, the rise of the Internet of Things could result in a massively compressed telco infrastructure, as all industry sectors join together. For telcos and other companies in the technology sector, this makes staying ahead of the curve more important than ever… Cue a host of organisations throwing their hat into the ring.

So what’s the downside?

It is not just the telecoms industry who are excited by 5G, but various others who could capitalise from it as well. The result is numerous industries wanting a slice of the action, and so 5G must now fulfil multiple agendas and requirements. Media companies will want prioritised bandwidth, so that their movies can be streamed in higher resolutions. Gaming companies will expect low latency for optimum player experience. Technology companies such as Apple and Samsung are perhaps the biggest investors: Smartphones are an obvious motive, but they are also keen to involve themselves in the IoT, which is tipped to become their next big source of revenue. The development of 5G will therefore be a product of the involvement of various industries. It could be a case of too many cooks spoil the broth, or it could in fact signify the beginning of the next generation of telecommunications technology – a compressed infrastructure that joins together media companies, technology firms, transport organisations and more.

5G therefore represents the chance for telcos, governments and technology companies to unify and create new world standards of living in a digital age. Exciting advancements such as self-driving cars, remote-controlled surgery and self-ordering fridges are all possible with its release. It represents a time of growth for many companies: telecoms have the opportunity to reverse their declining revenue and rejuvenate the industry, whilst technology companies have the chance to broaden their field. A technology revolution is ahead, and the potential is exciting for companies from all industries.

However, as the infrastructure compresses, telecommunications companies invest in the IoT and technology companies begin to offer their own communications options (such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), companies must adapt to the shifting market to stay afloat. The fate of companies such as Dell and HP, who struggled to keep up with advances in IT after the rise of cloud computing, demonstrates the necessity for companies to keep up with the technological revolution that 5G represents. Telcos, technology firms, media companies, automotive organisations and many more, all have the opportunity to profit from 5G and the IoT, as long as they are able to convert to a concentrated and interconnected digital economy. The race to 5G is officially on, and no one wants to be last.

Since the game-changing release of the first generation iPhone back in 2007, the annual reveal of the newest model is an event that has gathered a following that is borderline fanatical. Since then, Apple has continued to dominate the smartphone industry, raking in a staggering 94% of smartphone industry profits, and their popularity shows little sign of slowing down. In fact today, 395 iPhones are sold in the world every minute. The release of the iPhone 7 was as eagerly awaited as ever, however its reception has already been mixed. A poll from Fortune found that fewer people than ever are actually interested in purchasing the new iPhone. The decision to eliminate the headphone jack has proved controversial, and various techies have claimed it is too similar to the previous generation. Among the displeased are telcos. One particular new feature of the iPhone 7 and iOS 10 could potentially cause trouble for the telecommunications industry.

With the increasing popularity of online communications, VoIP services are constantly growing in demand. WhatsApp recently passed the milestone of 100 million voice calls per day, and Skype now has over 300 million monthly users. The transition away from traditional methods of communication is sure to spell trouble in the future for telcos: and this trouble moves ever-closer upon the release of the iPhone 7. A new feature allows users to answer VoIP calls from the lock screen – a feature that was previously reserved for voice calls only.

Now that Apple has increased the accessibility of VoIP calls for those who invest in the new iPhone, the opportunity for VoIP growth will only increase if this feature is adopted in future evolutions of smartphones. For telcos, an increased popularity of VoIP calls will cause a decrease in their customer usage of voice call minutes. Ultimately, this could drastically affect telco revenues, as customers who make use of this new VoIP accessibility will largely only pay for their used data. This could drastically reduce profits because voice calls are currently responsible for approximately 80% of telco revenue.

The iPhone 7 has also created another problem for telcos. The iPhone 7 has been upgraded to be capable of “lightning fast” speeds, with an LTE-A of up to 450 mbps. The problem is, there are actually very few telcos in the world who can support such speeds. This could create the problem that either iPhone 7 users will be displeased with their telco because they are unable to take advantage of the faster speeds, or telcos will need to work towards expensive upgrading. Either way, the higher speeds of the iPhone 7 could put telcos under pressure, even though they’ve already invested billions of dollars upgrading their networks to provide 4G.

The silver lining

With Apple declaring the latest iPhone as more expensive than its predecessors, telcos can cash in and offer more expensive contracts. Several UK telcos have already announced their pricing options, and EE, Vodafone and O2 have confirmed their higher price plans, forcing consumers to bear the brunt.

Various telecoms have previously voiced their displeasure with VoIP apps, stating that they are in breach of licensing conditions that telecoms themselves have to abide by. With the release of the new iPhone 7 and iOS 10, increased accessibility of VoIP calls is certain to cause further problems for telecoms worldwide.

What’s the solution?

The future success of telecoms may soon depend on their ability to adapt to the shift away from traditional communications, and alter their businesses to fit the unpredictable and ever-changing market. Accepting the increased use of internet based communications, and creating price plans for customers that offer fewer minutes and increased data, is perhaps a logical start point.

Additionally, by deploying new and disruptive services such as Dubber’s Playback, telcos can tap into brand new revenue streams to compensate for the loss of revenue in call minutes. They can even do this whilst maintaining attractive price plans, instead of irritating customers by hiking up the prices of subscriptions and bundles as they have done previously, year after year. Ultimately, innovative and agile service providers will catch the worm.

BroadSoft provides Unified Communications and Collaboration services to operators all over the world. Put simply, BroadWorks helps operators to provide unified communications services needed by enterprise customers globally. The call recording protocol used by BroadWorks has been integrated into the very core of Dubber, allowing us to work together in perfect harmony. Without being too technical, here we describe how this partnership benefits the call recording services Dubber can provide to our users.

BroadWorks embraced a new global call recording standard when they created their SIPREC interface. The interface essentially provides a link between the service provider’s telephony environment and the recording platform, allowing companies who provide call recording solutions access to users’ conversations. If the user decides to record their calls, this interface enables them to utilise call recording software. It is the SIPREC protocol that forms the basis of Dubber’s construction. Our call recording solution has been designed to interface with the SIPREC platforms, enabling us to provide call recording to any platform that already deploys SIPREC. BroadSoft is the perfect partner for Dubber, helping our call recording solution to achieve new levels of functionality and service to our users. BroadSoft themselves have acknowledged the harmonious union as Dubber passed their rigorous interoperability tests to become accredited: “The Dubber platform and SaaS business model complement the BroadSoft technologies”.

This partnership developed further in May this year, when BroadSoft chose Dubber to be their official partner for Audio Call Recording as part of their fully managed service for Japanese telecoms, BroadCloud. This development is something Dubber has eagerly awaited, as it provides an exciting development for our growing global scope. We will soon provide our call recording solutions in association with BroadSoft’s managed service in Japan, improving our service in yet another region.

The BroadWorks motto is “simplify, accelerate, innovate”, and through our collaboration, that is exactly what Dubber has achieved for call recording services.

Simplify

Dubber’s partnership with BroadWorks simplifies call recording for our users by:

• Limiting your admin. The only administration needed to start using our recording services is a simple sign up to the BroadWorks interface
• Automatic call recording: Dubber captures calls through the SIPREC interface directly from the BroadWorks system
• Processing of data: all relevant metadata is efficiently processed, stored and presented through the Dubber Cloud Application
• No hardware headaches for end users or service providers
• No need for maintenance, upgrades or limited scalability or storage

Accelerate

Dubber’s partnership with BroadWorks accelerates call recording for our users by:

• Rapid deployment: the SIPREC link between BroadWorks carriers and Dubber speeds deployment of our call recording to users. Your service could be up and running in mere hours!
• Automatically provisioning Call Recording for BroadWorks users
• Limited administration and setup
• Hassle free testing: Dubber’s Lab operates as a call recording sandbox, allowing carriers to test our services by connecting BroadWorks lab systems to Dubber in a matter of minutes

Innovate

Dubber’s partnership with BroadWorks innovates call recording for our users by:

• Allowing unlimited scalability: Dubber’s connection to BroadWorks operates from a cloud platform, allowing elasticity of call recording services to users for the first time
• Creative ways of accessing the  Big Voice Data: through the BroadWorks API allows association between Dubber users and their phone data
• Specially constructed high availability of every component of Dubber
• Meeting PCI-DSS compliance: all BroadWorks users can benefit from Dubber’s ability to help users meet PCI-DSS compliance through secure access to recordings and encryption technologies, download and sharing controls, complex password authentication, pause and resume functions during exchange of sensitive information, ability to tag recordings as ‘sensitive’, and finally DTMF masking and muting
• Global service: the partnership enables Dubber to deploy call recording worldwide: interconnect points are available to maintain a guaranteed level of quality between the service provider’s SIPREC enabled deployment and Dubber’s cloud infrastructure. New locations can be requested.
• Support for VoiP, IM and Video capture

The accreditation by BroadSoft has allowed Dubber to revolutionise BroadWorks call recording technology for service providers, by providing a service for end users that has never before been possible. As with everything we do, Dubber works to innovate our services in areas which have previously been stagnant for essentially decades. In pursuit of this challenge, we are always looking to partner with industry leaders such as BroadSoft, and through these relationships, bring improved service to both our end users and the clients of these industry leaders.

The British public have spoken and they want out (of the European Union). In the months running up to the June 23rd referendum the sterling took a plunge but made a bullish recovery ’til the the night of voting. Following the success of Vote Leave, as it was announced throughout the night and morning of 24th, we’ve seen the FTSE 100 and the GBP take huge dives.

With both now being slowly on the mend, it makes me wonder, how is rest of the economy going to react to this within short and medium terms. When it comes to Telcos and service providers, where can we see drastic changes in the near future?

Relocation, Roaming, International Calls and Spectrums

When it comes to mobile carriers and large telecommunication organisations, there are four major areas we can speculate about, and these are the ones we’ll be discussing here. First will be major providers considering moving their European headquarters outside of UK.

We can draw from Mr Colao, Vodafone’s CEO hinting that FTSE 100 companies such as Vodafone could move their headquarters if the free movement of people and capital was restricted. Freedom of movement may become more regulated in a UK outside of EU, but will movement of capital will ever become restrictive enough for companies such as Vodafone to consider relocating their headquarters?

Second is international calls. On the back of Britain leaving the EU, we might see another Scottish referendum in order for the Scots to leave the UK and apply for an individual EU membership. In basic terms, a phone call from Scotland to England would then count as an international call and the new costs imposed on consumers.

Next area of concern is roaming charges. The European Commission recently ruled in favour of abolishing roaming charges by June 2017. Companies like Vodafone and Three have already been rolling this offer to their customers. By the time UK has triggered Article 50 and spent the next two years negotiating a deal to exit the EU, we might see roaming charges snapped back into place for UK customers, travelling through Europe.

Regarding the fourth area of change, according to Bird & Bird, following Brexit, the UK is not going to be subject to decisions and regulations set by the Commission on spectrum allocations and use across the EU. Most likely UK will cooperate with member states and neighbouring countries, however regulatory divergence may rise between UK and EU in respect of regulations of OTT services. UK may take a more liberal approach on these services that could help add to stagnant revenue streams of carriers and telcos in west Europe.

For the year ended 31 March 2016, Vodafone reported organic group revenue growth of 2.3%. Most of this growth came from outside the company’s European area of operations. Vodafone’s service revenue from its African, Middle Eastern and Asia-Pacific operations grew at 6.9% year-on-year. European service revenue shrank by 0.6% on an organic basis for the period and UK service revenue contracted by 0.3% for the period.

Telcos are not Brexit ready

In a recent poll by Pinsent Masons, an international law firm, has highlighted that only 35% of telecommunication firms polled have a clear plan for dealing with impact of UK leaving EU.

In addition a recent survey by TechUK of 277 technology business leaders found 70% were in favour of staying in the EU, with only 15% supporting a Brexit. More than 90% of those in favour of leaving the EU said it would give the UK more flexibility in a global economy, and 64% believed it would make the UK more globally competitive. Here we can argue that the main disadvantages of staying in the EU would be around red tapes and regulations enforced by EU on UK innovation and growth in these areas.

To summarise, nearly in each area where a door is closed by UK leaving the EU, a new one may open through opportunity, innovation and investment. A lot will come down to the negotiations in the next two years, who the Conservative party will nominate to lead the country through these negotiations and how quickly the nation can unify and back the majority decision in the referendum. As roaming and spectrum rules could become British, it is very likely that they will mirror the European approach in these instances and we won’t see any immediate benefits from a new ‘free market’ that is to be the new UK.

A snapshot into the evolution of unified communications and call recording through the last two centuries. From the first telephone operators to new generation of communication recording intelligence.

Cloud-based call recording technology provider Dubber Corporation Limited (ASX: DUB) (“Dubber”) is pleased to announce it has been selected by UK telecommunications and IT service provider, AVC One (“AVC”), to provide call recording services via AVC’s BroadSoft platform.

AVC’s management team are pioneers of BroadSoft’s unified communications (UC) platform, and were one of the first to adopt BroadSoft’s technology in the UK in 2002.  The company has subsequently built a channel network of service providers and resellers, and count many high profile UK brands as customers.

The agreement with AVC is the first customer engagement with Siphon Networks, under a distribution agreement commenced in March 2016.  As an existing provider of BroadSoft managed services to AVC, Siphon have been an integral part of the agreement and are providing integration resources to deploy Dubber on AVC’s platform. AVC will initially deliver a minimum of 1,000 contracted ‘reserved’ users, which will expand with opportunities from both existing AVC call recording users and those requiring unique functionality provided by Dubber.