Mobile Service Providers Should Use Pricing to Counter Over the Top Apps

At least for the moment, mobile service providers can and should use pricing as a tool to improve the appeal of operator messaging and discourage the use of competing over-the-top communication services, Strategy Analytics says. 

In some cases, one might say, service providers can price messaging or domestic voice so attractively that the value of using an over the top app to save money simply evaporates. That doesn't address the value of an OTT app when different functionality is the attraction, though.

So over the longer term, Strategy Analytics offers the advice that pricing alone will be insufficient, and additional changes to the user experience will be needed "to keep customers within the operator communication ecosystem." says Nitesh Patel, Strategy Analytics senior analyst. Patel says Rich Communications Suite is needed to add more functionality. 

That's conventional wisdom and generally good advice, one might argue. The issue is whether RCS can become established fast enough that users have not already become accustomed to using third party apps.