How Telecom Operators Respond to OTT Business Challenges

The status quo of "being pipelined" has forced telecom operators to transform. The mobile Internet is in an explosive growth stage, and the data traffic of telecom operators has increased significantly. The revenue growth brought by traffic has become the main factor driving the revenue growth of telecom operators. With the development of OTT service, the demand for bandwidth and capacity of telecom network is increasing, which should be good news for telecom operators. However, with the appearance of OTT service, the value brought by data traffic is constantly transferred to OTT service providers, and the trend of telecom operators being "pipelined" is becoming more and more obvious. The social network formed by OTT service reduces the stickiness of telecom users. The user stickiness of OTT service is mainly based on virtual accounts such as Skype, iCall, MSN and Twitter. In OTT service, telecom operators only play the role of network carrier, which greatly reduces the user stickiness of telecom. At the same time, the appearance of OTT service has impacted the telecommunication network designed based on the traditional traffic model. The heartbeat message between the App program of the intelligent terminal and the server and the paging initiated by the external network at the Internet exit lead to the surge of signaling messages, which has become an important factor affecting the normal operation of the telecommunications network. In addition, the brand-new business model of OTT service providers has brought unprecedented challenges to telecom operators. Alternative OTT services, such as Skype, iCall, MSN, Twitter, etc., are eroding the traditional voice and short message service market, which makes the voice and short message revenue of telecom operators show a gradual decline trend, and the income decline rate even exceeds the income brought by the growth of data traffic. The scissors gap between business flow and business income is widening day by day, which brings great pressure to the business operation of telecom operators. Facing the "pipeline" risk of telecom operators, the transformation of telecom operators is imminent. Throughout the world, the most common way for telecom operators to meet the challenges of OTT business is to reduce service charges, improve their own service quality and charge higher fees to OTT service providers who use the operator's network. However, it is a common problem for telecom operators all over the world to adopt what strategies to effectively deal with the challenges of OTT services to telecom operations. These three strategies are helpful for operators to meet the OTT challenge, change the operation mode and strengthen the management concept of data traffic. It is a common mode of data traffic operation to promote the growth of business traffic and realize the value appreciation of unit business traffic. At present, domestic telecom operators often only promote the growth of business traffic by enhancing new business experience, reducing prices and tariffs, and improving service quality. Obviously, this is an extensive traffic management model. In the data age, telecom operators must strengthen the concept of data traffic management, explore the refined operation mode of telecom, realize the management and control of network resources and services at the user level, subdivide business traffic, realize the matching of business traffic with users and network resources, and realize the identification and control of business traffic. Identify users' behavior habits and preferences through data mining, and maximize the value of unit traffic by providing users with personalized and differentiated information services. Enhance core competitiveness and improve and optimize bilateral business models. For OTT business, the core competitiveness of telecom operators is the advantages of network resources, billing experience and user resources, but compared with OTT service providers, telecom operators are in a weak position in the application field. OTT service is transmitted through the Internet, although it needs to adapt to different data stream code rates, hardware operating systems, screen formats and so on. , but its advantage is that it is suitable for any online terminal equipment. Therefore, telecom operators should constantly improve and optimize the bilateral business model. On the one hand, they should open up the information services provided by OTT service providers for individual users, enhance the consumer experience and promote the development of their own OTT business. On the other hand, open CDN or service gateway for OTT service providers, provide powerful network services, strengthen the capacity building of marketing and advertising platforms based on the advantages of user resources, enhance the weight of cooperation and negotiation with OTT service providers, and promote the healthy development of OTT business. Operators can get more benefits from it. Open up the value chain and build a win-win value network. The tide of OTT is unstoppable, and telecom operators will only miss their own development opportunities by boycotting OTT services. On the contrary, telecom operators should actively open up network resources and channel resources, gradually open up value chains such as network, content, information, services, terminals, bandwidth, data and user channels, and build value networks including telecom equipment suppliers, system integrators, service providers, content providers, application software providers, virtual operator, OTT service providers and users in the form of individuals or organizations. Telecom operators should reorganize the correlation between OTT service value chains based on network services to ensure their dominant position in the value network. The members of the value network can provide users with rich content and applications through close cooperation, and achieve win-win cooperation.