The telecommunications industry has experienced significant digital change in the past decade, leading to increased market competition. Customers are renowned for being extremely disloyal when it comes to mobile, fixed line and broadband services, and churn rates as high as 30-40% suggest the market is extremely price sensitive.
While customer loyalty in mobile, broadband and telephone is very low, television can maintain loyalty. Can TSPs regain control of their revenue streams, or must they embrace changing technologies to succeed?
Quad play is the latest buzzword in the telecommunications industry. Mobile operators, cable and satellite pay TV groups in Europe, the United States and elsewhere are scrambling to secure service for quad play packages: mobile; fixed-line; broadband and TV; to offer customers a multi-function service and benefit from cross marketing. Pay TV services are key to gaining and retaining customers, says Peter Cox, marketing director at PerceptionTV.
The quad play logic is simple – customers want to buy services from a single service provider and service providers want to save costs by billing one customer for multiple services. With TV, mobile, broadband and fixed – line services in one place and at one cost, why switch?
The TV industry is adapting to its changing environment too. Millennials rate new viewing options such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, more highly than traditional broadcasters. Networks that supply quad play services can accommodate the viewing behaviours of a multi-generation family.
Younger adults can enjoy OTT services with faster broadband, and older generations do not have to abandon preferred cable providers. Quad play meets the demands of all consumers.
For TSPs that want to benefit from TV, the introduction of an integrated OTT platform is the most effective way to do it. Historically television was complicated and expensive for TSPs, however, this is no longer the case. Take PerceptionTV for example, its mission is to democratise the TV space by providing an out of the box, cost effective IPTV platform.
To fulfil the promise of TV Everywhere there are many things to consider, not least the complex mix of products that constitutes the modern TV experience.
Today’s television consists of four distinct but inter-related services. These are:
- Live TV – watching when the programme is broadcast
- Catch up – being able to view programmes that have previously been aired
- Recording – recording programmes for playback later or to keep
- On demand – watching premium content, whether it has been aired or not, at a time of the user’s choice
The living room TV experience is dominated by these four capabilities and TSP’s that want to make a success of the TV market need to deliver a service incorporating them all to recreate the traditional experience.
TSPs must also work across an array of operating systems and devices: smartphones and tablets; desktops and laptops; connected/smart TVs; and OTT set-top boxes to be a comprehensive multiscreen offering.
Once TSPs have embraced OTT, expanded to all devices and worked out technology challenges, they can figure out the most appropriate monetisation model — or combination of models — to pursue: subscription; rental; freemium to premium; or purchase.
White label IPTV platforms such as Perception – from PerceptionTV – offer an integrated TV service that provides an end to end solution for TSPs. IPTV can be an expensive market to break into, particularly for companies with little TV experience, but the Perception platform is cloud-based and scalable – ready to be implemented in 16 weeks.
If companies are able to drive down costs with attractive quad play packages, consumers benefit from lower prices, simpler choices – a one-stop-shop for all media needs – and added content such as extra channels or exclusive content. TV can act as the anchor service for network operators, sharing its historically loyal customer base with other services.
TV technology is evolving and where pay TV once competed with OTT, it is now embracing it. Operators must customise services for viewers dedicated to online TV, and pay TV viewers. An integrated IPTV platform is a simple and cost effective way for telecommunications operators to deliver an engaging new service to subscribers.
The author of this blog is Peter Cox, marketing director at PerceptionTV.
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