Comments on: In new era, operators scorn over-the-top services at their peril

By: Rodriguez

Rodriguez — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:52:30 +0000

Comment to tomchr:
Seen from a content owner or developer we want scale of distribution and ROI. That’s why we would go to an aggregator for APIs before a single operator. In the long term it would perhaps be beneficial to make deals with single operators to cut out the middle-man. It is all about the resources you have available to do technical integration and/or to do tax, legal and contractual work. Facebook is the eco system I have seen making the best approach. Using aggregators for technical integration but handling agreements regarding rev share themselves. For smaller players, we simply don’t have the resources to run around and that’s why the app stores revolutionized mobile content distribution. They provided greater scale than that of operators…together with visibility, distribution, payment and mechanisms for updating SW.

By: scott meyer

scott meyer — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:49:37 +0000

Great food for thought and your article does bring out one key factor, telecoms have to think out of the box and be aware of OTT and NOT dismiss as a passing fad. The biggest problem in the US and possibly elsewhere is people want free quality entertainment more than they want to watch dancing cats on You Tube. This is the real rub as content providers want far more per sub than is reasonably profitable for the Telecoms. Just follow the shrinking Netflix library stories. The greed of content providers will stall any efforts by Telcos to embrace OTT and a linear subscription video service such as IPTV or Cable will continue to rule in the near and quite likely the long term future.

By: Andreas Bernstrom

Andreas Bernstrom — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:51:29 +0000

Thanks for all the comments, great to be able to start some debate. Agree with many of your comments tomchr, and believe that operators can leverage their API’s in smart ways to benefit both themselves and their subscriber. We at Rebtel are certainly looking at how our technology thru simple SDK’s can create new ecosystems and ideas that everyone can benefit from, and Im sure operators could do this extremely well if they have the inclination.
Another area where I think operators have a lot of opportunity is in understanding the benefits that digitalizing their business can have, both on their cost base but also on keeping their customers up to date and happy. The question is whether they have the DNA internally to execute.

By: tomchr

tomchr — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:14:25 +0000

Hi Dante. I agree about the scale, but at the same time I register that Google, Microsoft and Facebook now are cutting direct deals with the operators. At the same time Operators start to work together on de facto implementations. I believe that Billing needs to evolve so that customer service cn answer and help customers that got to many “berries”, as well as introduce caps on spending for certain subscriptions. That will require assets not available to the billings aggregators.

By: Dante

Dante — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:47:55 +0000

Only by setting some of their pride aside and exposing assets through API exposure can operators be part of future innovation. Sharing is more than caring, it is about evolving through the creative minds of others… But telco assets are only worth anything to developers when aggregated. At least in the beginning when speed and scale are of most importance. Zong, Boku and Bango, alternatively the big eco system owners are the current winners of the telco billing game…

By: Ove R. Topp

Ove R. Topp — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:39:57 +0000

First I agree that an operator can deliver components to the OTT players rather than aspire to be one themselves. Like off peak content transfers. This fits with today’s access business.. Bluevia is still far from interesting for devs, but might be a start if tons of more operators decide to join in. Quality subscriber info is a wet dream that requires operators to be much stricter when signing up subscribers. Especially pre-paid, and starting to wash the data… I think we agree on this I just see this as being an intelligent bitpipe up-selling components to the Service layer where scale is the biggest challenge. Nearly nothing of what you mention scales and therefore other players will seek out and deliver more scalable solutions. It might be a smart operator, but most likely not. Remember that it is the standards and protocols that give operators interoperability today, not their own means of “production” as a single operator…

The bottom line and what’s hard to swallow for operators is that Service players don’t really need anything from the operators other than the prerequisite of providing access to end users…

Telcos have disrupted themselves before going from fixed to mobile -but this is still within the realm of access.

By: tomchr

tomchr — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 06:02:15 +0000

Hi Ove. I agree partly to what you say, and as you see from my post there is no other way than achieving scale to enter the OTT / API space (ex Telefonica and Telenor cooperating on BlueVia). Just to give you some examples of assets I believe might be relevant for OTTs I would mention cash collection, quality, subscriber info, and to some extent differentiated business models for instance utilizing off peak for non time critical content transfers. When it comes to DNA, I fully agree. That is why a role must be performed differently from their existing business. The older telcos has already disrupted themselves ones in the transition from fixed to mobile telephony. I choose to be optimistic on their behalf and believe they can do it again. What is needed is visionary leadership and to transfer their focus from protecting to creating.

Lastly I would argue that there are no either or. I see a prospherous future for the googles and apples, but I also believe that the world will not stop here. Especially Googles business model is very interesting and could deserve an own blogpost. The fact that more people pays tax in many emerging markets through their consumptions of local telco services than through government, and that google drives access prices down towards zero while taking the value out in information transferred to an international advertising market, out of reach of local government that actually owns (on behalf of the people) the core assets for any mobile business model namely frequencies, should get some thoughts about longer term sustainability.

Anyway, lets hope that the development from dominant telcos to dominant Internet companies, do not only mean monopolies in new clothes. There are important things at stake and the closing of eco-systems, banning of compeeting services (browsers and app stores), is not a good sign for the future!

By: Sudski tumac i prevodilac za engleski jezik

Sudski tumac i prevodilac za engleski jezik — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:41:25 +0000

I completely agree with tomchr on this one!

By: Ove R. Topp

Ove R. Topp — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 22:18:15 +0000

A smart operator keeps to access. There is nothing in the operator DNA or the assets they posess which indicate a role to be played in the OTT layer. An operator exposing their APIs doesn’t scale! It only enables devs to develop something for that specific operator’s customers. In that sense operators need to start cooperating or someone stepping up taking an (unpopular among peers) aggregator role…

Cheap, sustainable access is what operators should deliver. Increased value in the Service layer will also increase the value of accessing those services via the access layer. Operators should embrace Google, Apple & Co…

By: tomchr

tomchr — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:54:56 +0000

Typo in the the paragraph that starts with the future… I meant high barriers of course.