Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
Over-the-top content providers may represent a new revenue stream for carriers, if they start paying for access to subscribers. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that ESPN has talked to at least one major carrier about paying to enable customers to access ESPN Mobile without exceeding their data limits, and today AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson reportedly told a group of investors that he expects to see new business models whereby content providers will help buy data for customers, either through direct payments or through advertising.
“The ecosystem now seems to be ready for this,” said Jefferson Wang of IBB Consulting. Wang has worked with most of the top-tier carriers and said that those with significant spectrum assets who are currently capping or throttling data are great candidates for deals with OTT content providers. “It’s a B2B play for carriers, so that they find the right partners to go with and those partners actually find the right carriers to work with, based on subscribers,” said Wang. Watch the full interview below.
