Ultimately, Service Providers Will Embrace Over the Top

Though many challenges obviously remain, many executives in the communications, device and over the top application industries think access providers, device manufacturers and independent application providers will find ways to work together.

Some 64 percent of respondents surveyed by Coleman Parks on behalf of Amdocs said they believed OTT apps would bring valuable innovation to the industry. Some 62 percent said that partnering was a strategy to counter or eliminate the OTT threat.

Some 42 percent of device or service provider executives said they could offer any service
an OTT player could, better.

Research firm Coleman Parks conducted 100 telephone interviews of 50 global service providers, 35 OTT and Internet Players and 15 device manufacturers
as part of the study.

Of course, the issue is that device suppliers, service providers and application providers all say they must own the customer experience, if not the customer relationship. That will be a complicated problem to resolve.

But some 58 percent of service providers believe the communications market will rationalize in the future, and that only players that partner will win.

Fully 73 percent of device manufacturers think their long-term survival depends on partnerships and  60 percent of device manufacturers also say that OTT players must partner or die.