Operators barking up with wrong tree for video income

by: admin Wednesday, September 5th, 2007

Rating: woof woof

By Annie Turner

In-Stat is arguing that North American operators are probably barking up the wrong tree as far as making money from video content goes. The research house argues that new technologies and business models that could threaten mobile operators’ ability to profit from video content are under development.

David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst, comments, “Of the five methods of mobile video delivery studied in a recent In-Stat report*, two operate outside the current cell phone ecosystem, and a third —out-of-band video — seems to be allied to mobile operators for commercial convenience, not technological necessity.” All three, Mr Chamberlain says, could bypass mobile operators altogether.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
• free-to-air mobile video, being considered by broadcasters, could disrupt other video services associated with mobile operators;
• tech-savvy users’ interest in time and place-shifting services, such as from Orb and Sling Media, threaten to bypass operators’ walled gardens;
• even though operators were the first to market with video from within their walled gardens, the services were greeted with apathy.

You’d think they were all control freaks who’d never heard of user generated content at all.

* The report, Wireless Operators May Lose Control of Mobile Video (#IN0703669MCM), covers the US market for mobile video.