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In this day and age of ever-increasing communications technology, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the fervent developments and changes in the communications industry. TMC’s (News - Alert) CEO, Rich Tehrani reached out for insight from industry consultant, Michael Stanford of Michael Stanford, LLC., and learned more about how changes in the VoIP and smartphone industries has affected or will affect communications trends.

Stanford suggests that customers will be the ultimate decision-makers when it comes to which new hot products will succeed over others, and he presents a different take on how trendy networks such as social media and mobile video will affect the growing marketplace. See the full exchange below for some sweet industry insight:

Rich Tehrani (News - Alert): What is the most significant trend in communications today? Why?

Michael Stanford: Still the move from circuit switched to IP. IP end-to-end is still rare. As IP trunking begins to pervade, new services like HD Voice and video calling will become more common. The corresponding change in wireless is the move to 4G, which is just beginning.

RT: What is the one product or service the market is most in need of?

MS: Bandwidth on the access links.

RT: When will unified communications go mainstream?

MS: When it becomes easy to use and useful.

RT: Who will win the smartphone wars? Tablet wars?

MS: Customers will win. With Android the iOS finally has competition, and the competition will be brutal. The user experience will continue to improve, and prices will stay down.

RT: Has social media changed how you communicate with customers?

MS: No.

RT: Nearly every phone manufacturer is now incorporating support for wideband codecs.  Will we finally see widespread HD voice deployments in 2011?

MS: Depends what you mean by widespread HD voice deployments. Skype (News - Alert) has over half a billion registered users, and QQ has almost as many. Even with overlap the number of wideband-enabled endpoints must be approaching a billion. Polycom only has one non-HD phone left in their Soundpoint line-up, and the other IP phone makers support HD voice too. On the cellular side, Orange has started to deploy AMR-WB in some markets in Europe already. So in some ways we already have widespread HD voice deployments. On the other hand, if you dial a call using a regular phone number, the chances of it completing in HD are effectively zero, and will remain so in 2011.

RT: What are your thoughts on the viability of mobile video chat or conferencing?

MS: Mobile video chat is a killer app; not just seeing each others' faces, but “see what I see.” The problem is the fragmentation of the networks, which is not helped by Apple's decision to go with FaceTime (News - Alert). All the latest high-end smartphones except the Motorola Droid X have user-facing cameras, and presumably Skype will soon be running on them. If Apple doesn't block Skype, that will be the way that mobile video calling takes off. 

RT: Which wireless operating system (Android, iOS4, Microsoft (News - Alert), etc) will see the greatest success over the next three years?  Why?

MS: Android. It has enough momentum now to continue to lead for the next 3 years. It won't be iOS because Apple isn't going to license it to third parties, and it is unlikely to be Windows, because even if Windows Phone 7 is as good as Android it will be expensive to turn around market perceptions, and with Android being free it will be hard for Microsoft to find a business justification to spend enough money to do that.

RT: Some have suggested wireless networking will soon replace wired networks in the enterprise.  Do you agree? Why or why not?

MS: It's not either/or. There is a place for both. For users with laptops rather than desktops, who have low-bandwidth requirements like email and light web browsing, wireless is often adequate. But wired networks are snappier and far more reliable. Organizations that use VoIP on their desktop phones are unlikely to cut the wire in the foreseeable future.

RT: What impact has the growth of cloud-based services had on your business?

MS: None.

RT: What do you think of the net neutrality debate?

MS: The telecom industry has been driven by regulation for over a hundred years. That's not going to change. The only question is whether the regulations are going to keep the Internet healthy or cause it to stagnate, moving innovation and bandwidth improvements onto closed networks.

RT: What is the most overhyped technology in your opinion?

MS: Unified Communications, because the gap between the dream and the reality is so gaping.

RT: You are speaking at ITEXPO West 2010.  What is your session about?

MS: I have three sessions: VoIP Peering (SP-04), HD Video Conferencing (D-02) and HD Voice on Smartphones (MC-04). Their unifying theme is how to improve the user experience in voice and video calls. This is done by enabling end-to-end IP communication, which allows untranscoded wideband audio and video for those endpoints that support them.

RT: What will attendees take away from your session?

MS: That there are some simple, low-cost steps they can take right now to greatly improve the quality of their calls.

RT: Please make a bold technology prediction for 2011.

MS: It's not particularly bold, but like many others I expect a wave of Android tablets to sell in vast numbers in 2011. With user-facing cameras and Wi-Fi connectivity they will open video calling to a new cohort of consumers.