Survey Says Cable OK with OTT
By
| July 31, 2013
The press may love to throw around the terms “cable killers” and “cord cutters” when it comes to OTT, but cable and broadband providers aren’t sweating it. Nearly 70% of providers surveyed by Incognito Software recognized the new business opportunities OTT offers. Of that total, 43% see it as an opportunity, while 26% feel it’s a threat and opportunity. Twenty two percent just view it as a threat.
With opportunity comes the need for upgraded bandwidth. Of those surveyed, 95% have already or plan to upgrade their networks for bandwidth usage growth. Streaming video was easily topped the list of contributors to bandwidth spikes (70%). Instead of concern over losing customers to cord cutting, respondents were more threatened by potential bandwidth increases (31%) and content losses (23%) vs 14% for cord cutting. SNMP was the most cited tech for measuring network congestion (65%) followed by DPI and IPDR. Other technologies, including sFLOW, Netflow and MicroTic, received less than 10% of the vote.
Incognito has a stake in this game as a provider of broadband provisioning and bandwidth management solutions. In 2Q, it surveyed its existing customers and outside contacts. A total of 65 respondents completed the survey, with the majority (81.5%) being cable broadband providers. About 27% of participants were in North America. Europe, the Middle East and Africa had the greatest representation (33%).
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