We’re increasingly reliant on our networks to keep us working, entertained and connected to our loved ones. Networks ensure our kids get an education and have smart new toys to play with.

But it’s hard enough keeping your laptops and mobiles secure, without having to worry about cybercriminals targeting everyday objects such as your fridge, your child’s smart teddy, your baby monitor, your partner’s watch or even the family fishtank.

In fact, more and more households are struggling to protect their identity, privacy and personal data, as well as ensure their connected experience is as expected. This has created an opportunity for a new kind of cybersecurity service Connected Customer Assurance & Protection Services (CCAPS).

Independent analyst firm Omnisperience has published a new paper that outlines the risks facing households, homeworkers and small businesses in today’s increasingly connected world. Omnisperience argues that these customers have been left behind when it comes to enjoying a safe connected experience, with lack of time, expertise and resources meaning they remain exposed to ever-more sophisticated cyberattacks.

“While large enterprises have the means to protect themselves, households and small businesses remain vulnerable, risking their own safety and security but also providing a back door that can be exploited, and poorly secured devices that can be utilised in large-scale cyberattacks. It’s in everyone’s interest to fix this problem,” explains Teresa Cottam, chief analyst at Omnisperience.

This is a problem that a new type of cybersecurity service has evolved to solve. Connected customer assurance & protection services (CCAPS) eliminate the gaps between siloed security applications, remove customer effort, and provide unobtrusive but effective protection for all devices, connections, personal data and activities. Importantly, they also add performance assurance, to ensure connected experiences meet evolving customer expectations.

CCAPS are a new type of value-added service provided by communications service providers (CSPs) that enhance the customer experience, add value to the core network offering and deliver a critical new revenue stream to CSPs. Unlike many new CSP revenue streams that are currently being talked about by industry commentators, demand for CCAPS is proven, not theoretical.

CCAPS address critical customer concerns and remove the burden of maintaining and securing household networks, data and devices. This makes them something that customers are prepared to pay for today. In fact, CSPs that have launched initial CCAPS are seeing immediate uplifts to their average revenues per user (ARPUs) in the region of EUR1-2 per month. And with CCAPS set to become more sophisticated, research from Coleman Parkes suggests households are willing to pay even more – up to US$5 (€4.13) per month. For a typical Tier 1 CSP this represents hundreds of millions of euros in much-needed and immediately-realisable new revenue.

Teresa Cottam

“Connected Customer Protection & Assurance Services are one of the low-hanging fruits for CSPs currently looking for new revenue streams,” says Cottam. “They’re vital both as a direct source of much-needed revenue, but also because they boost digital confidence, making them essential to the success of the digital economy.”

See ‘CSP Security Survey, Trends in the US, Japan and LATAM’, September 2020 (page 6)

This research by Coleman Parkes found that, “while an average of 53% of CSPs thought consumers would be willing to pay between $2-$4 (€1.65 – €3.30) and 20% between $5-$6 (€4.13 – €4.95) beyond their monthly packages for security services, research among APAC consumers, for example, showed an average of 74% of those surveyed were willing to pay $4.81 (€3.97). Similar research in LATAM among consumers had even higher results, around US$5.50 (€4.54).” The research also found that US customers were willing to pay an average of $4.80 (€3.96).

See the CCAPS white paper here.

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