The rise of Big Data has shown just how valuable information is to businesses today. Insight into consumers and their behaviour is showing companies how to improve their business practices in order to retain their existing customers and attract new ones. Voice data has previously been excluded from the Big Data conversation but technology is now able to interpret speech, enabling companies to mine their calls for valuable information. With customers continuing to pick up the phone for assistance, access to this data is an important breakthrough creating a new field of analytics: speech intelligence.

Speech intelligence was initially only affordable for larger enterprises that could invest the CapEx required to install proprietary solutions but the introduction of software as a service (SaaS) solutions, deployed through service providers, has democratised speech intelligence.

The advantages of speech intelligence

Speech intelligence software most commonly transcribes audio into text to enable searches, and can even go beyond the words themselves to identify the mood of the caller through tone of voice and speech patterns. The searches and automated processes that can be implemented through speech intelligence open up limitless potential for business development, particularly in customer service. By combining processing techniques used in Big Data with speech analytics, companies can uncover important insights into their customers.

Introducing Zoe

Zoe is a collection of speech intelligence modules that includes Smart Search, which will be followed by Keywords and Sentiment at the end of 2017. Zoe can analyse and evaluate recorded conversations to establish the emotion of the caller, and search calls for specific words, phrases, or characteristics. This functionality can be used to identify recurring issues and opportunities for business development, and can track trends in customer behaviour.

Zoe has democratised speech intelligence and made it accessible to small businesses, and even single users, with an affordable monthly subscription. Zoe is deployed through Dubber’s API, allowing it to be easily integrated with a variety of other applications. Through the API, users can create their own custom applications of the functionality to realise limitless use cases.

Smart Search

Smart Search allows users to search their recorded calls using a variety of metrics from date and location to specific words, phrases, or sentiment. Any calls can be searched, regardless of whether they were originally recorded with Dubber, so Smart Search can be implemented as a stand-alone service.

Keywords – due for release late 2017

Keywords enables users to track specific words and phrases across their captured communications and jump to the point in a call when the word or phrase was spoken. These words can be tagged to be automatically highlighted in future recordings and automate actions in other applications through Dubber’s open API – opening up limitless potential use cases.

Sentiment – due for release late 2017

Sentiment identifies the emotions of speakers through a recorded conversation by measuring speech characteristics such as tone of voice, speed of speech, pauses, interruptions, and certain phrases that express emotion. These indicators create a detailed understanding of a caller’s mood throughout the conversation and enable Sentiment to provide users with a report that assigns the call with a positive or negative score.

Integration

At the core of Dubber is an open API, which allows Zoe’s features to be managed through the Dubber portal, a custom portal, or directly through the API. Zoe’s deployment through Dubber’s open API allows it to integrate easily with other applications, such as CRM systems, enabling data to be automatically transferred to third party applications such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics.

Zoe has democratised speech intelligence with its open API and availability as a subscription-based service. Where once only large enterprises would be able to invest in speech intelligence, businesses of any size can now benefit from the insight that Zoe can provide. Zoe’s deployment as native cloud SaaS makes it a flexible solution that can adapt to businesses of any size, without the need for any additional hardware or software installation. With calls stored in the cloud, they can be quickly and easily processed.

Previously excluded from the Big Data conversation, Zoe’s analysis of voice data opens up a world of insight that can be gained from the study of recorded calls. Now companies can truly listen to their customers.

VoIP calling has been steadily replacing traditional telephony due to its reliability and efficiency, achieved through its use of data connection instead of fixed lines. The chart below shows the reasons for moving to VoIP from landlines given by SMBs. The data connection that enables VoIP calls is quicker and cheaper as it takes advantage of the existing IP infrastructure of interconnected routers. Recording VoIP calls presents a challenge due to the difference in the way audio is transmitted in VoIP calls compared to traditional telephony. VoIP call recording requires data to be ‘sniffed’, which is a process of real-time monitoring of data flow through a computer network by a software program or a hardware device containing this sniffing software or firmware. Sniffers copy the data without altering it and can only intercept data from networks that their host computer is connected to.

Survey by Software Advice

Depending on your requirements for call recording, and how you intend to use the captured conversations, and your business telephony network (or lack thereof), the VoIP call recording solution that is right for you may vary.

What will you use your recorded calls for?

When deciding on the call recording solution that is best for you, it is important to consider how you will be using your recorded calls. If you are a journalist who records their phone interviews, you will need calls to be stored in a format that can be easily replayed, but you might not need to keep the calls for years after you have filed your copy. You might have a podcast and need to be able to access your calls as files that can be edited to form part of a finished episode. A solution such as Dubber’s Playback, designed for individuals, is an easy-to-use communication capture service that allows you to decide which of your calls are saved and allows you to download and share them as easy-to-edit audio files.

Financial institutions require their communication with customers to be recorded in order to stay compliant with the latest regulations. Call records are generally required to be stored for up to five years, so businesses will need to ensure the solution they choose has the flexibility and security needed to safely archive their conversations. A cloud-based solution, such as Dubber, has the scalability required to hold unlimited calls and is not restricted by the storage hardware limitations of legacy solutions. True cloud storage also has the added security of encryption and the redundancy that accompanies multiple storage locations, for added reassurance.

Businesses that require call recording for compliance will most often need call recording that is compatible with a unified communications (UC) solution. Modern working life spans multiple methods of communication and our mobile phones allow us to make traditional calls as well as VoIP calls, send text messages, and have conversations over instant messenger. To ensure that all of these communications are captured accurately, call recording must be able to integrate with UC solutions.

Larger businesses that have contact centres often use call recording in order to improve their customer service and business practices through analysing their captured conversations. A solution that offers speech intelligence, such as Dubber’s Zoe, will allows a business to search their calls and automate processes to make their business more efficient and gain a detailed insight into their customers. Recording with Dubber can also record conversations between extensions, ensuring recording continues if a call is transferred internally.

When considering VoIP recording options, it is important to plan for the future as well as the present. Choosing a flexible call recording solution that can adapt as your business grows and changes is vital. Expansion into different locations, sudden changes in call volume, and regulation reforms could affect your call recording needs so the solution you choose must offer you the reassurance that these eventualities can be accommodated.

With online interaction dominating the modern world, a phone call feels special. Phone calls are reserved for the important stuff – for the decision that needs to be made, for the question that we want answering urgently – we pick up the phone when we just need to get things done.

Listening in

We can see this idea reflected in how customers contact companies when they need assistance: research by eConsultancy found that a phone call was the most commonly chosen method of communication at 61%. When looking for online assistance, 71% of customers wanted help within 5 minutes or less (see chart below). The majority of customers looking to buy also choose to call a company rather than contacting them online. Both Google and xAd, two of the leading digital advertising networks, found that a click-to-call option on ads was highly successful – with 51-62% of users choosing this option.

Source: eConsultancy

On top of the immediacy offered by a phone call, there is science behind why verbal communication is so effective: hearing is the fastest sense, with sound taking only 10 milliseconds to reach the brain compared to 13-80 milliseconds for sight, according to researchers at MIT,

With customers 11 times more likely to complain over the phone than via the internet, according to research from Arizona State University, these phone calls are a valuable opportunity to turn a negative experience into an improved relationship. Customer interactions that take place over the phone create a much better opportunity for a meaningful connection. Your customer is right there, willing to speak to you, and you can answer any questions they might have immediately. Up-selling and cross-selling also comes much more naturally over the phone. Only a face-to-face conversation could possibly be better.

Reading between the lines

Written communication can be open to interpretation. It’s the very reason for the enduring magic of books, but it can result in misunderstandings in the corporate world of hurried emails. Without the indicators of tone and meaning, simple sentences can be misconstrued to drastic effect. When clarification is needed over the phone, you can get an answer immediately. Complex technical queries are always best discussed with a call as the instant feedback can alleviate confusion quickly, whereas a series of emails might only further complicate things.

With a phone call, you can hear the emotion of the speaker’s voice – their intonation and volume of speech can often say more than their words. Customer service agents can tell if a customer isn’t fully happy with the resolution of their complaint, while sales agents can get a better sense of how to entice a new client.

Measuring the success of phone calls

The importance of phone calls is clear, and because of this customer service agents who excel at building relationships with customers are more valuable than ever. However, contact centre workers can feel like they lack objectives and that their work can’t be measured. In order to provide customer service agents with reports on their success, a call intelligence solution such as Dubber’s Zoe can be utilised to conduct sentiment analysis of calls and measure the customer’s experience throughout the conversation. Not only does this give workers valuable feedback on their work and progress, their supervisors receive an insight into their interactions with customers and can use this information to improve their work practices and train new members of staff effectively.

The benefits of email and instant messaging are the paper trail that they leave behind. With a call recording solution, such as Dubber, that provides transcripts of your conversations, you can have all the benefits of phone calls with the reassurance that you can track and record your communications.

Hosted telephony has gained popularity and coverage recently, with its cloud base appealing to forward thinking enterprises and press alike. The chart below shows the growth of both managed and hosted systems, with on-premise PBX experiencing negative growth. However, research undertaken by communications analyst MZA has shown that most small businesses still use PBX rather than making the move to hosted telephony. There are four main factors to consider when choosing between the two solutions, which are outlined below.

Source: Synergy Research Group

Cost

Hosted telephony largely appeals to both small and large businesses due to the lack of CapEx required to implement the system. There is no hardware necessary, which reduces the storage space required as well as power costs associated with running servers. With on-premise PBX options there are also installation costs on top of hardware expenditure. Larger organisations will have greater CapEx, as costs only increase with the size of the hardware required.

However, monthly subscriptions for hosted telephony can work out more expensive over time, depending on the services and the size of the enterprise. Considerations need to be made regarding the features required by the business, as there may be extra costs that are not included in basic hosting packages. The chart below shows the top 7 reasons that SMBs look to change their system, with the results separated by their current solution, giving an idea of the considerations that should be made when deciding on a system.

Software Advice’s survey of SMBs and their phone systems

Time

As well as installation costs, the time required to implement an on-premise PBX solution is an inconvenience. Cloud solutions offer the advantage of rapid deployment, meaning installation costs are virtually eliminated by the DIY approach to implementation. When choosing a telephony option, installing a new infrastructure is a significant commitment. PBX solutions will need to be updated over time, and replacing hardware or enhancing features can take weeks to integrate. These changes can often lead to communications downtime that will need to be scheduled to reduce inconvenience as much as possible.

Hosted solutions can be implemented alongside existing communication systems. The most hardware that will be required is the phones themselves. Software updates are maintained by your cloud provider, meaning you stay constantly up to date.

Flexibility and scalability

The case for hosted telephony is certainly bolstered by the flexibility and scalability that it offers. Just as hosted telephony can grow alongside a business, it can also be scaled back. This can reduce monthly costs immediately, in contrast to large CapEx that will have already been paid in the case of PBX.

Security

With hosted telephony you have the added reassurance of reliable redundancy. Depending on the provider, you may not have immediate access to all of your data but you will have the guarantee that it will be stored securely with recovery solutions. The advantage of on-premise PBX systems is the immediate access they offer, but recovery measures are often so expensive that only larger enterprises are able to justify the cost of this level of security.

To decide which option is right for your business you need to consider not only pricing, but what your company needs from a telephony system. Looking to the future and anticipating how these needs might change as your company grows is just as important as the immediate considerations of cost and convenience.

With an evolving business culture that increasingly requires flexibility from workers, solutions have developed that enable businesses to stay on target even when employees are working remotely, from their own devices, and out of office hours. Unified communications (UC) solutions do just that: synchronising conversations across devices and allowing workers the flexibility they need to keep up. SMBs are now looking for UC solutions which were only available to large corporations a few years ago. We’ve surveyed 120 SMBs in the US and found some interesting results.

Investing in communication

Communication is an important part of any business, but with tighter travel budgets affecting SMBs more keenly (a recent study by Forbes found that 59% of SMBs surveyed were travelling for business less frequently than they had been at the beginning of 2008, with 37% saying that they were travelling much less frequently) developing adequate alternatives to face-to-face contact is crucial. Improving communications allow relationships to be maintained from a distance, removing the need to be constantly on the road but in a slow and precarious economy, contact with clients is vital to nurture relationships and retain business

The demand for a unified communications solution is increasing due to the productivity and cost reduction benefits associated. Our survey of 120 SMBs across the US showed that while only 11% said they had a UC solution in place, 73% of respondents said that they wanted a service that consolidated all of their communications into one platform, showing a huge opportunity for UC growth. Simplifying the ways employees talk to each other and external contacts brings with it increased efficiency and a feeling of interconnectivity that is vital in a small business.

With 84% of respondents stating that they use the telephone as a business tool either some or all of the day, it is clear that this is an important channel for their company communications. However, significant percentages of respondents also noted their use of instant messaging and conference calls: showing that while traditional voice calls remain important to businesses, communication is branching out to other channels. Especially when sharing data or imparting information that is better presented visually, technology-enabled meetings such as web-conferences are a growing channel for businesses to engage with their customers through. More than half of SMBs surveyed by Forbes said they had increased their use of web-conferencing, videoconferencing, and teleconferencing since 2008 – citing time and money saving benefits as the main reasons for their choice of communication channel and also flexibility of location and timing (see graph below).

Source: Forbes

Mobile workers

SMBs are likely to employ mobile workers who need more flexibility than a traditional desk phone can offer. They frequently work across multiple devices and out of the office and require a communications solution to match if they want their conversations to remain cohesive and organised. When asked what phone system they used for work, personal mobile was the most common choice for respondents of our survey – showing that SMBs require a UC solution with mobility to ensure their communications are synchronised.

Employees experience this level of constant connectivity in their personal lives and they have come to expect this from their work communications as well. The risk of continuing without a UC solution in place is that employees, frustrated by workplace communication channels that lack flexibility and performance, use their personal accounts for external communications. This can cause difficulties concerning security and compliance. We have written before about the rise of BYOD and the challenges it brings but in certain industries this approach just isn’t feasible. In its place, a UC platform that is both available and secure is essential. This type of solution, which included features such as call recording and mobility, was once only available to large enterprises but is now available for businesses of all sizes. Telcos now have a unique opportunity to collaborate with platforms such as Dubber to offer these services to their SMB customers who are ready to take advantage of this additional functionality.

The most popular choice of service that wasn’t currently available to the SMBs surveyed was call recording, with 37% selecting it as a feature they want from their service provider, showing a key area of growth that telcos can capitalise on. Call recording is becoming ever more important as regulation and compliance become key for increasing numbers of industries.

The obvious solution for the communication needs of SMBs is a UCaaS model, which can provide features previously only available to larger enterprises, but with much lower costs. Using cloud infrastructure is beneficial to many aspects of businesses, from CRM solutions to data storage, due to its scalability and security, and its future is in communications. Native cloud solutions offer much better security than systems hosted locally and can grow or shrink alongside a business. By consolidating all communication; from telephony to email, via instant messaging, into one integrated service, SMBs can connect their employees with a cohesive working practice.

If you’re one of the SMBs that would like call recording on top of your UC platform, then get in touch

While the days of holding the line while you wait for an available support agent  might seem far from over, call centres have evolved since their conception with the emergence of new technology. Now more commonly referred to as contact centres, as communications between consumers and customer service advisors are no longer confined to calls, here we examine how they have adapted to the modern age.

Please hold the line

Traditional call centres used an automatic call distributor (ACD) to distribute incoming calls to agents using a first in, first out (FIFO) system. Modern contact centre solutions now have virtual queuing systems that allow customers to receive callbacks instead of remaining on the line while they wait for an operator to become available. Either a virtual placeholder takes the customer’s position in the queue, or a scheduling system allows customers to choose a time and date in the future at which to be called back.

New technology allows for continuous improvement of customer service. Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that utilises speech recognition and keypad tones in order to direct a call to the most suitable advisor using information supplied by the customer. Where traditional ACDs could only play a greeting and queue calls using the FIFO system, IVRs can profile a customer and reduce call transfer and queue times. Callers speaking different languages can be routed to an appropriate agent based on their language preference. With more sophisticated IVR, different approaches can be tested and refined to adapt to the customer’s response. Conversational IVR can even greet customers by name for a personal touch.

Survey by DimensionData

Adapting to the modern consumer

Historically, customer support has been delivered through call centres but today modern contact centres use computer telephony integration (CTI) to communicate through a variety of channels including online chat, forum style support ticket platforms and social media. The chart above shows how customer service interactions have changed since 2006. This immediacy and flexible approach is something that has come to be expected by the modern consumer. Where once customer advisors were only required to have excellent verbal communication skills, now their writing and adaptability is being put to the test. The chart below shows preferences in channel by age group.

Source: Fonolo

For instance, Akixi, a leading provider of cloud based call management and analytics allows businesses to improve their sales performance and deliver excellent customer service. They have recently partnered with Dubber, creating the potential for limitless applications of call recording and intelligent call analytics in one fully comprehensive unified communications (UC) package. Like Dubber, their solutions offer unlimited scalability, no hardware limitations, and rapid deployment.

Speech analytics software, such as Dubber’s Zoe, allow companies to identify repeated problems by looking at commonly used phrases and analysing the sentiment of phone calls. Complaints can automatically be picked up and forwarded to development teams to improve future products and services, while customer advisors who consistently turn complaints into positive outcomes can be identified through sentiment analysis.

With communications solutions now being integrated with CRM systems, the data generated from contact centres can help to build an informed profile of each customer. Mondago, who provide computer telephony software, specialise in providing UC solutions that are designed to be integrated with CRM systems. As repeating information is frustrating for the customer, services such as Mondago’s Go Integrator feature screen population, which allows an advisor to see all their available information, create a much more efficient way of working.

An integration between Mondago and Dubber, enables their Go Integrator product to automatically pause and resume call recording with Dubber’s cloud based service. This is essential for remaining compliant with PCI regulations surrounding the protection of payment card information. Again improving productivity in contact centres and enhancing data security of consumers.

Not so distant future

The introduction of session initiation protocol (SIP), which allows for multimedia communications, means that calls do not have to be confined to only voice. In the future, IVR can be extended to IVVR (interactive voice and video response), giving the option of video calls with customer service advisors. This will allow systems to read customer emotions by analysing facial expressions, and can also use facial recognition to identify and greet callers.

In place of security questions and difficult to remember passwords, video calls can use biometric identifiers such as iris scans to prevent fraud. Where customer emotions were once identified by an advisor’s sympathetic ear, sentiment can now be detected by software that can enhance customer understanding. The value of being sensitive to the needs of the customer still remains, but the emergence of new technology allows the modern day contact advisor to do their job more efficiently. By integrating IVR with CRM systems as well as workforce management systems, customer service has the potential to be completely transformed into a proactive element of business development.

The way people communicate is changing, and so telcos need to reevaluate how they deliver their core services to keep up with these. In a dynamic and turbulent time for communications, telcos must consider a new balance to build lasting revenue streams; they must find innovative new solutions to overcome the 4 major challenges facing telcos today whilst still providing users with key services.

To stay afloat, telcos must adapt. If they invest and develop suitable solutions that simultaneously answer consumer demand and support tech innovation, they will broaden their user base and open themselves up to new sources of revenue. If they fail to adapt, however, they will find themselves threatened by other new, innovative smaller but yet fastly growing companies. In a competitive and dynamic industry that is headed for a big shake up, what new challenges are the biggest threats to telecom longevity?

1. Competition from OTT services.

The phenomenal growth of mobile messaging apps in the last few years has become a serious threat to telco revenue. Approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide now use at least one messaging app, which is steering valuable traffic away from telco’s text services. There is already an obvious decline in the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of telcos, with a decrease from 34.58% in 2007 to 22.11% in 2015. If the trend continues, text messaging will die out completely and OTT service providers will continue to steal valuable revenue from telcos.  Add the voice services provided on top of these messaging apps and the issue is much more significant.

2. Gearing up for the IoT

The integration of the IoT into our everyday lives is edging ever closer, and it is predicted that there will be 21 billion connected devices by 2020. To sustain these numbers, platforms that support incredibly high levels of connectivity will be needed. This places a lot of pressure on telcos to develop a converged platform that is sufficiently functional to support the full weight of the IoT.  The integration of technology companies with telco services to form the IoT could also result in a hugely compressed telco infrastructure.

3. Decrease in voice revenue

The way people communicate is changing: where voice and text used to dominate the communications industry, now internet messaging and VoIP do. Smartphone traffic is moving to WiFi, increasing from a total of 59% of smartphone traffic in 2011 to 81% in 2013. As a consequence, voice traffic has decreased from 50% in 2009 to 41% in 2014, leading to a decrease in voice revenue of 2.7% by 2014. Previously voice revenue was the largest source of income for telcos, and so the decrease in voice revenue has led to an overall decline in ARPU. Telcos must find an additional source of revenue to replace voice and text – such as network level Value Added Services.

4. Developing 5G

5G is expected to become available to the public by 2020. It is expected to improve not just the speed of the spectrum, but the capacity and latency as well.  Ultimately, 5G will provide a browsing experience for users with less delay and unlimited connections. The potential of 5G will also facilitate development of  IoT, meaning 5G will be not just an upgrade, but a complete revolution of mobile technology. However, there are many industry sectors and companies who could profit from 5G – including technology giants such as Apple, who are investing in 5G to support their smartphones, and IoT companies in need of a platform from which they can launch their products. The involvement of other industries puts telcos under pressure to develop 5G technology before they are shut out of the process altogether. The race is on – and telcos must invest heavily if they are to produce a network with the promised capabilities of 5G.

Take the new Peugeot Instinct for instance. At this year’s Mobile World Congress, we saw glimpse of telecommunication services and device providers, partnering with car manufacturers, to produce concept products and showcasing the reach of 5G within new sectors. This is a welcome step in the right direction.

Park Associates recently released an Internet of Things (IoT) industry report suggesting that by 2025, 66% of US households would be smart homes. This got us at Dubber thinking about the future, and wondering what 2025 would look like, and just for fun, we thought we’d write a snapshot of what life might be like in 2025.

Chart from Statista

I am woken by the shrill, high notes of my alarm as they penetrate into my ear and leave no opportunity for delaying or ignoring their wake up call. I miss the time when alarms were by my bed or on my phone, and could be snoozed until I decided I wanted to get up. Since they have been integrated into our pillows they’ve become pretty hard to ignore, and unless I lift my head off the pillow it won’t stop. On the plus side, I’m never late anymore.

I drag myself from my nice, heated bed and head to the bathroom. I decide I’m still feeling pretty drowsy, so I tell the screen in the bathroom to get the coffee machine to make my morning espresso ready for when I get out and to set my shower temperature to a little hotter than usual. I select my shower music and step into the cubicle, the water automatically starting once I close the door.

One very hot shower, massage (from my new shower installation) and an espresso later, I leave my bedroom and head into the kitchen, the lights following me as I move from room to room. After my bespoke liquid breakfast, I set the hoover, mop and lawnmowers to do the rounds once I leave, and pick up my coat and bag. The screen on my fridge tells me that it’s raining outside, so I grab my umbrella too. As I’m about to leave, I get a notification on my phone alerting me that the fridge door is open, so I return to the kitchen and force it shut before leaving the house.

As I get into my car I get a notification on my phone informing me that, because the sensors detect nobody is home, the heating and lights will all be switched off. I approve the notification and ask the car to play Justin Bieber. I’m in a Throwback Thursday mood today.

As my car drives me to work my phone plays the daily headlines and weather reports through the car’s speakers and talks me through my schedule for the day. I rearrange a meeting and dictate a couple of emails and decide to pick up breakfast from my favourite cafe on my way. The cafe is pretty busy but their Amazon Go system picks my face and details up as soon as I walk through the door, and a notification on my phone asks whether I would like to change or keep my last order. I choose to keep it, pay with my phone and wait for only a minute for my order to be ready.

Annoyingly my retina scan entry isn’t working today, so I have to go to security and get an ordinary touch ID entry to let me into the office. I can’t help thinking that sometimes all this technology slows me down, but then I look at my breakfast and think how I don’t have any cleaning waiting for me at home and instantly dismiss the thought. I heard someone say the other day that the world has changed more in the last 20 years than in the previous 250 years, and I can’t help but think that must be true. Life before the tech revolution seems like another lifetime altogether. I can barely even remember what it’s like to drive, clean or place an order with a waitress. I wonder how I ever got by before my phone became my personal assistant and virtual soul-mate. I try to remember the last time I wrote anything. It was probably my mum’s birthday card 5 years ago.

An alert from my Google Contact Lens reminding me that my first meeting of the day is in 5 minutes stops my thoughts in their tracks, and I hurry to my desk. My iScreen greets me, and within seconds my phone is connected to the workspace and I am ready for the video conference.

After a busy morning of 3 meetings, I read through the email transcripts of the calls and save all notifications of the important actions I must prioritise into my calendar. An alert reminds me that my appointment with my GP is during my lunch break, so I head to the canteen to grab some lunch and am seated once more at my desk just in time to chat to the doctor. He examines my vitals through the sensors on my phone, asks me questions and informs me that he will be prescribing me some Immune Boost, which will be delivered by drone to my office within the hour.

By the end of the day the Immune Boost has done its job and I feel much more lively, so I decide to walk to my car rather than taking the shuttle to the car park. From the car I check the inside of my fridge to see if I need any chicken for the casserole tonight and order my oven to preheat to 180℃. I can’t wait to get home and spend the night in front of my TV. I wonder what recommendations it will have for me tonight – they’re always so perfectly catered to my likes, current events and even to how my day has been. I have no idea how it works but I love it.

I arrive home at 6pm to find the front lights on and waiting for me, knowing that this is the time I usually get back. My house opens the garage door, deactivates the security system and turns on the lights on sensing my car in the driveway, and I park up and head inside. After dinner, I settle down on the sofa to read through the TV’s recommendations and select a feel-good film – perfect for when you’ve been feeling unwell. I’m guessing that recommendation was based on my Immune Boost prescription earlier in the day, although I must admit the technical side of life today does completely escape my understanding.

After the film, which was as always perfectly recommended, I head to bed and put on my Thync head pad to help me relax, enjoying the gentle stimulating pulses and knowing my alarm will be set as soon as my head is detected on the pillow. I make sure everything in the house is turned off from my phone, select a dream from my UtopiApp and settle down for a good night’s sleep, looking forward to a night of sunbathing in the Maldives in my dreams.

Since the first generation of iPhone was introduced almost a decade ago, numerous other tech giants have thrown their hats into the ring and attempted to compete with their own smartphones. There have been various levels of success, but none have given Apple a run for their money more than Google’s Android phones. From the day Android entered the market, a never-ending Apple vs Android debate began, with both teams gathering loyal followings. The sales and performance of the two are constantly compared, but this blog is interested in knowing which side will be strongest in the upcoming fourth industrial revolution. With the rise of the Internet of Things, 5G and smart technology, which side will adapt and win the debate once and for all?

A Decade of Competition

The true comparison between Apple and Google’s smartphones is between their operating systems iOS and Android, as this is where the competition for control of the IoT will actually take place. When it comes to sales, they vary most quarters. According to Tim Cook, 30% of iPhone buyers in the July-September 2015 quarter had switched from an Android device, and in the last quarter of 2016, iOS sales outperformed Android: winning a 6.4% rise in shares whilst Android experienced a 5.1% decline. Despite this, Android still holds the majority of the market.

The debate of iOS versus Android remains unsolved when it comes to smartphones, as some users are firmly in Android’s corner and others back iOS. Whilst each camp constantly and fervently argues their side, those of us on the fence have decided that the debate is currently futile. At this point, both iOS and Android are mature and competent operating systems that realistically are more similar than different. In our eyes, it could be that the future, and their response to it, will finally end the debate.

The next big trend in consumer technology is set to be home automation, as smart technology is brought into the home. Possible new products include doorbells that connect to smartphones and show who is at the door, coffee machines that brew coffee based on traffic and self-ordering fridges. These devices will all be connected to smartphones, enabling homeowners to control their home from their phone.

To make the development of these smart homes a possibility, a strong platform that facilitates the connection of many devices to a unified service must first be built. The role of smartphones in smart technology and the Internet of Things appoints Apple and Android as the major players in the battle to develop the first successful IoT platform.

An example of an everyday use of a Smart Home. Watch full video here.

Apple’s IoT Platform

Apple’s current contribution to the IoT market is HomeKit, a framework for connecting smart devices in the home. The platform uses HomeKit Accessory Protocol (HAP), and already has the advantage of many HomeKit-enabled devices being available in the market. These devices may also be able to connect to Apple Watches and Apple TV, which will rejuvenate both products and give Apple Watch owners an exciting new use for their smartwatch. The downside of HomeKit is that it is a closed-source project. Every IoT device that hopes to connect to it will need to be Made For iOS (MFi), which will limit the connectivity of the IoT.

HomeKit will appeal to those already favouring Apple and iOS, and its attractiveness as the first IoT platform will depend on the number of devices which Apple successfully can bring to the smart market using MFi. Apple will need to identify the greatest consumer demand for smart devices, which at this early stage of the IoT and smart technology is still relatively unknown.

Google’s IoT Platform

Google are already on their second attempt at developing an IoT platform: following the failure of Brillo, they have rebranded and released Android Things. Google’s entry into the IoT race is a platform that enables Android developers to create new smart devices by using Google’s existing Android APIs, and many are excited by the platform’s compatibility to Android devices and its brand new OS.

Android Things enables cross-platform APIs, which will encourage innovation for the IoT and home automation across a broader range of developers – by offering up a platform for its development. Android Things is therefore less limiting that HomeKit, and offers greater connectivity. Additionally, Google’s platform has a wider range of suitable products under the Android family than Apple does. However, Android Things is also limited by its reliance on the loyalty of Android consumers to establish itself as the key IoT platform on the market.

So who will Come out on Top?

Google and Apple are not just battling each other – they also face competition from Amazon. With their recent release of Amazon Echo, an intelligent voice control assistant for the home, they have also entered the IoT race. Voice control is already popular (it is currently used by 1 in 5 Americans to perform Google searches) and is predicted to cause a larger revolution than touch screen technology. It is therefore certain to play a key role in the IoT and smart homes, validating Amazon as a key player in the IoT race. Having already conquered their industries, all three companies are in the IoT race to gain a new physical space (the home) for which to sell their products, and to broaden their demographics with smart home technology that will apply to a larger audience. For the winning company, the value will be immeasurable.

Apple, Google and Amazon’s platforms and the IoT itself are still very much in their infancy, and so it is hard to predict what will happen in the future. After all, when the iPhone was first released it received largely negative reviews. Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, even said that the iPhone was too niche: “There is no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. None.” And yet at the end of 2016, the iPhone had a market share of 11.5%, whilst the Windows phone had 0.4%.

The bottom line is that brand loyalty does not choose the winner – just look at what happened to Blackberry and Nokia in the smartphone market. Customers will ultimately choose the company that gives them what they demand, and delivering this in a seamless fashion is what will distinguish the winner. It is predicted that the victor in the IoT race will be either Apple or Google, as both have the advantage of brand recognition and a pre-existing ecosystem of smart devices. Currently, Google’s Android Things stands out as the more promising platform, and seems to be solidly in the lead – but as Apple proved in 2007, tech wars are highly unpredictable.

With John Lewis, a large UK based retailer, recently launching a Smart Home department and Amazon, Google and Apple all developing their own Internet of Things (IoT) platforms and devices, the IoT is definitely on the rise – and looks set to become the new standard of living by 2020.

John Lewis decided to launch their Smart Home department following a yearly increase of 1,600% in searches for smart home products by their customers. The question now appears to be not if smart homes will become mainstream but how, and who will be the first to launch a successful platform. It is even predicted that smart homes will become as commonly adopted as smartphones. As the era of smart technology approaches, life in the near-future is set to become radically different to the lives we are used to leading now.

If you’ve ever wished you could check whether your fridge is out of milk on the journey home, instruct your coffee machine to make your morning coffee without getting out of bed, preheat the oven before you get home or automatically coordinate the lighting in your home with the time of day and activity levels, then those dreams may not be as far off as you think. The IoT is already making its way into everyday life, and soon these seemingly impossible tasks will become common practice.

Image from Net Things

But what you may not know is that the IoT is already integrated to a certain extent in our everyday lives. There is a large collection of smart IoT devices that are available to buy or that even are already integrated into our everyday lives. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of our top 5 IoT devices that you probably didn’t realise you are already using:

1. Sat navs: Now this depends on the model, but more recent ones have been integrated into the IoT, and can now download traffic data and automatically update their planned routes to avoid heavy traffic.
2. Wearable devices: Wearable health monitors, for example, Fitbits, are a growing craze. The devices record your activity levels, exercise, food, weight and sleep, and gather your overall health data to help improve a user’s health. They are considered an IoT device because they rely on connectivity and download the collected data to smartphones or computers.
3. Smart thermostats: Internet-enabled heating systems are perhaps the most common smart home device. They connect to smartphones and enable users to control their home’s heating from their phone. Nest is the most famous example and is available as a package with smart smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.
4. Amazon Dash buttons: Amazon is releasing increasing numbers of IoT devices, such as Amazon Echo – which marks the first IoT personal assistant device, and Amazon Dash buttons – which provide an IoT consumer goods ordering service. They are available for all common household products, and enable users to order a top-up as soon as they run out, at the mere press of a button!
5. Oyster cards: Launched in 2003, Oyster cards were actually one of the first commercial devices to use the IoT. The cards collect usage data of where, when and how often the user travels, which is then analysed and used to optimise the underground for users. This is probably the most used IoT device in UK.

Map of daily London commuter journies – by Dr Ed Manley of UCL

Just for fun, we’ve also made a list of our top 5 crazy IoT devices that you’ll find it hard to believe exist:

Top 5 Examples of Crazy IoT Devices that you won’t Believe Exist:

1. Smart bedding: Heat-adjustable mattresses that can be programmed to reach different temperatures on different sides of the bed, settling the heating/window row once and for all. They can also be set to a timer and to track sleep phases, heart rates and breathing rates.
2. Smart garbage bin: Quite simply, they monitor your rubbish and automatically compile grocery lists.
3. Smart nappies: Who would’ve thought that nappies can be smart? Connectable nappies that send SMS reports when they detect moisture are now available.
4. Smart shoes: Google and WeSC have developed a shoe that connects to social media and provides exercise motivation by literally talking to the wearer if they have been still for too long.

And the winner of the most crazily unbelievable IoT device is…

1. Smart toilet seats: Yep, they’re an actual thing. Developed in Japan, smart toilet seats offer an automatic raising and lowering function, heating and automatic flushing, which can all be controlled through a dedicated smartphone app. Users can also keep a diary of toilet use and (for some reason) play music through built-in speakers.

The IoT is growing fast, and is predicted to have 20.8 billion connected devices by 2020. The rate at which the IoT is growing certainly provides an explanation to the wide range of smart technology that are already available or under development, and the at-times crazy sounding devices. The benefits of the IoT are almost limitless, and smart homes in particular have the potential to significantly reduce the costs of owning a house. There are downsides too though, such as privacy concerns, this man who spent 11 hours attempting to make a cup of tea with his WiFi kettle, and we can’t help but wonder how much demand there really is for smart toilet seats… The question is, will the substantial savings on time, energy and money be worth the privacy concern of sharing very detailed data of ourselves and our everyday life with IoT and telco companies? In other words – will the ends justify the means?

As we approach the Fourth Industrial Revolution, traditional communications solutions are on the decline whilst internet-driven communications solutions become increasingly popular. This period of drastic change threatens the survival of the Telecoms industry, as substantial declines in user spending on voice and text services have caused a decline in telco revenue – which can be monitored through Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). To stay afloat, telcos must adapt to the changing times and source other revenue streams to replace what is lost in the continuing revolution of communications. Our infographic demonstrates why telco revenue is decreasing and suggests how telcos can replace it to raise their ARPU once more: