The Customer is Always King (Well, until They Use Too Much Data)
We have predicted the current capacity crunch for some time and over the past months we have seen almost every wireless operator around the world begin to cap their users on a monthly basis. This all to contain the damage of streaming video.
But the fact that wireline operators are now capping their consumers and willing to jeopardize something as important as customer satisfaction demonstrates exactly how dire the situation has become. AT&T in the US and Rogers in Canada have now announced caps on DSL and Cable.
Consider, for example, that Netflix is cutting the quality of streaming video in Canada and that Verizon is planning to “throttle” its most-active users when its network is stressed. They are trying to find a solution to a very complicated problem, which is commendable, but is it really wise to further diminish an already poor quality of experience for the customer? For sure the data cap will help as a band aid to their network capacity crunch but operators and media distributors alike must find new technologies that work for both sides.
So how can operators mitigate the impact capacity crunch without sacrificing the consumer experience? Unfortunately there isn’t a silver bullet. There is not a solution or tool on the market today that can single-handedly solve the capacity crunch. But there is some good news – there are a number of video delivery optimization solutions on the market today that can help ease the burden that mobile video places on the network.
Operators just need to be more realistic when they are evaluating them. For example, solutions that rely on bit-rate throttling or transcoding are akin to putting a bandaid on a shotgun wound. Sure, they reduce the amount of data flowing over the network, but it’s a relatively insignificant reduction that also often results in a poor end user experience.
Why not instead consider employing a strategy such as content pre-positioning, which provides consumers with a far superior playback experience on their device and maximizes the efficiency of the operators’ networks by leveraging underutilized capacity and flattening the peak loads. And it also enables innovative revenue growth applications that work outside of the cap.
It’s a win-win solution, in our opinion. The customers get great quality playback on an unlimited basis, operators get to save their networks and don’t need to invest billions so that media companies can monetize it and media companies continue to grow in the digital content distribution market.
What do you think?
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