Due to the dynamic nature of the technology industry, the global telecommunications industry has experienced an ever-changing business and technology landscape over the past two decades. Today’s telecom operators strive to provide seamless and high-quality voice, data and multimedia services in a multi-device mobile environment. However, telcos face the greatest challenges to their business from Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers.
The Impact of OTT on Telecoms
Popularity of OTT adoption
A common but largest source of revenue for telcos is the messaging and calling services they provide. However, telcos have become useless in this area as their domains have taken a hit following the elevation of OTT messaging to a respectable position in the statement. Nonetheless, they still provide the broadband connectivity needs that will be the basic requirement for OTT services.
Content Distribution
The demand for consumer content is at an all-time high. Content distribution mechanisms are also evolving and proliferating to keep up with the depth of their consumption needs. One of the strategies to cover this space is to publish a piece of content on multiple platforms at the same time to get the maximum possible reach. Services geared towards meeting this demand typically take into account the convenience and user experience aspects on the other end of the business.
Personalization and customization
The sheer variety and volume of information available online leads consumers to insist that relevant content is always available to them. As consumers spend a lot of time on their smartphones, they want their user experience to be more personalized and unique. This demand makes it necessary for OTT service providers to track individual consumer preferences and provide the right information accordingly.
What is the strategic direction for telecommunications
Develop their own services
Another long-term strategy for telcos is to launch their own OTT services. This will give them complete control over service development and allow them to integrate with other services in their offerings. Telcos can either develop the necessary expertise in-house or acquire an existing company that has the relevant skills and technology base.
While this may not be the fastest route to market, telcos can use their existing assets (control of the network, customer insight, customer service and distribution channels) to differentiate their OTT services from other offerings in the marketplace. However, this strategy requires considerable investment, and the approach is risky for telcos that do not have the necessary skills to launch such services.
OTT partnerships
Here, telcos are partnering with established and highly demanded OTT platforms. This initiative is driven by the need to compete with OTT platforms with impressive customer bases. Telcos will be able to profit from the large volume of traffic such platforms see and can do so by improvising broadband package plans for their customers. However, there will be no autonomy over the direction of the platforms that lead telcos to sell. Naturally, the success of this business concept lies in the association of a successful platform during the latter’s success.
Thus, we briefly discuss the impact of OTT on telecoms, where we see the struggle of telecoms in the clamor of OTT and the projection of a clever concept (OTT Telecom) about both players.
You can also partner with telcos to launch your own OTT platform with the support of platform providers such as Xmediatv. Contact us today.
