Ovum has released a report that looks at some long term trends for global telecommunications.
In Straight Talk Telecoms 4Q09, Ovum introduces a series of reports on the state of the telecoms industry in the year 2020.
There are numerous tidbits of interesting observations and forecasts. I found this one in a section looking at “Tiering of broadband offerings increases to
combat rise in traffic”:
Where tiering has been introduced, it typically relies on one of two measures for differentiating various packages: total traffic downloaded per month, and, more rarely, time spent online. We believe neither of these will be sustainable in the long term, because neither meets the test of easy comprehension or tracking by customers. We believe that a different model will instead come to the fore, which will differentiate by usage patterns, with web, email, gaming and video packages offered by providers at increasing price points.
Of course the challenge is whether such pricing plans will be permitted under the new rules for internet traffic management.
According to Ovum, end-to-end delivery of a quality experience will require a new set of capabilities, delivered by SMART players, where SMART stands for ‘Services, Management, Applications, Relationships and Technology’. Those that can’t rise to the this level are seen likely to fall back on the role LEAN operators: Low-cost Enablers of Agnostic Networks.
Advocates for internet access as a plumbing service have suggested that dump pipes are necessary to permit the greatest opportunities for innovation in the development of applications.
Will regulation limit the ability of carriers to offer SMART choices?