Bandwidth management, not cord-cutting, operators’ biggest threat from OTT

Despite the increased popularity of over-the-top content and services, broadband issues are perceived by operators as a bigger threat than cord-cutting, new research from Incognito Software has revealed.

Revealing to Rapid TV News a deeper version of the previously released analysis, the  Growth of OTT Content: Opportunities and Challenges for Service Providers report from the  global provider of broadband software provisioning and service activation solutions found that rather than be cowed by cord-cutting concerns, the majority of operators survey acknowledge that the popularity of OTT content could actually provide opportunities to develop new partnerships and revenue streams.

The survey found that fundamentally OTT is driving network capacity upgrades. Just over four-fifths (82%) of respondents have already upgraded their network infrastructure to cope with increased subscriber bandwidth usage, with three-quarters attributing this increase to streaming video sites.

Analysing the data, Incognito say that overall, the data suggests that broadband service providers currently favour the “stick” approach and are opting for bandwidth caps and fair usage policies that largely punish high bandwidth users. Although there were regional variations between the strategies used, most respondents acknowledged employing several at once, indicating that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to dealing with the increase in OTT content.

Nearly half (47%) of all concerned respondents in Latin America are most anxious about bandwidth consumption and the most common methods of managing these risks include fair usage policies (63%), bandwidth caps (58%), and proprietary OTT models (53%).

By contrast, more than two-fifths of those in the EMEA region are most concerned about losing content to OTT providers and their most common methods for managing this risk is through the use of proprietary OTT services (62%) and fair usage policies (48%). Bandwidth caps are being used by  providers in North America as their primary means of managing OTT with a third deploying fair usage and service add-ons.