What is transcoding and why does it matter? It’s the translation of one lot of compressed data (content) into another format, whether it’s video, sound, image or text. In an ideal world, this would be without damaging or downgrading the original’s characteristics. In the real world, that’s frequently what happens.

Transcoding is particularly important in mobile because of the huge number of diverse handsets in use. An ostensibly simple example – sending an MMS from one user to another – could mean an intermediate translation between the original and eventual form it is presented in because one might be a high-end smart phone and the other a basic handset.

The complexities and scale of transcoding are a challenge for operators who act as gateways to the mobile Internet and who need to support the huge range of devices used by their customers. The ever-changing diversity of features and format often leads to operators blocking certain features on some devices because there are just too many to deal with economically. Of course, this justification can also be used to stamp out competition, such as from Nokia, say, which is looking to compete with network operators by running an ad network and setting up its own portal.

Undermining business models
Whether transcoding problems are created deliberately or not, they are making it very hard to third parties to build a mobile ecosystem. Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO of Gofresh itsmy.com (www.itsmy.com strapline – the stickiest mobile web community) is a vocal critic of operators and other parties that disable some of his site’s attributes. For instance, he recently stated that 70% of his site’s click-to-call ads – served by Google Adsense – do not work because the mechanism is suppressed, which means his company doesn’t get paid by the advertiser.

Similarly, if a consumer clicks on a banner ad on the itsmy.com site, their network provider often prevents them from going to the WAP site as part of the practice of inhibiting or controlling off-portal activity. Again, the brand advertisers don’t pay because the traffic is not driven to their sites, although itsmy.com is keeping its side of the bargain.

Errors of judgement
In June Vodafone UK unveiled enhancements for its mobile web customers, based on Novarra’s transcoding system. The trouble is, in a nutshell, that this transcoding systems does not autodetect any of the mobile site domains such as .mobi, which to say the least is vexing for those who have gone to the trouble of creating them. Novarra’s system prevents the handset from sending the correct user agent, which means that the transcoder views all web sites like a PC browser does, ignoring the mobile specific content, and packaging the full online page as best it can onto the mobile screen.

Not surprisingly, this has incensed those with mobile sites and their temper has not been improved by the feeble attempt to fix the problem by way of introducing an index that mobile site owners can be added to if they apply. There have been complaints that requests to be added have been ignored and that this is just another way for an operator to control where their customers go, having finally abandoned the practice of charging them extra for going off-portal and introducing flat data rates.

Vodafone UK insists the idea was to allow customers to look at any website they liked, regardless of its format, and pointed out that there are not other ways to do this, such as using Wireless Universal Resource File (WURFL). This works by referencing a database of browser identification strings and is part of the Free and Open Source Software movement. There have been some suggestions that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3) should issue guidelines to incorporate this functionality, but the formation of .mobi with the broad backing of the industry (including Vodafone) was supposed to have achieved that already.

By what right?
Transcoding is part of much wider arguments. What right do operators have to dictate where their customers go and what they do? The idea of an ISP doing the same is unthinkable. Until very recently, there was a staggering level of hubris among most operators that they do have this right. For example, one outgoing senior Sprint executive delightedly told a conference in New York in March 2007 that his company’s new Media Network could strip out ads from off-portal locations visited by its customers if it desired, so that they weren’t competing against those who’d paid to advertise on its portal.

How things have changed in the last few months. The arrival of the iPhone and, more importantly, its browser which knocks all others on mobile devices into a cocked hat, and Google’s agitating in the mobile market have stirred things up spectacularly.

At the end of November, Verizon Wireless said it will open its network to any device which meets a "minimum technical standard" by the end of 2008. Surely the timing of this announcement was not a coincidence. Verizon is not a member of Google’s Android Open Handset Alliance and this announcement was made right before Google confirmed it would be bidding in the forthcoming 700MHz spectrum auction in the US in January 2008. Google aims to offer an open network on which any device could use any app and go to any destination it wanted – preferably Google apps and via the Google search box, obviously. Perhaps not surprisingly, on the day of writing this article, Google had announced that its first mobile apps would be for the iPhone.

These are all positive moves toward a new level of openness which would enable to mobile ecosystem to flourish. However, while it’s easy to get carried away with the glamour of the big picture, the industry must now concentrate on ironing out transcoding issues if that ecosystem is to become a reality.
Bena Roberts is the founder of BKI Media.