How has ‘Broadband First’ Changed the Telecommunications Industry?
It should come as no surprise that as online streaming platforms are making their ground strong in today’s digital world, it would and it has had many effects on the traditional video entertainment platforms. Streaming giants like Amazon, Disney Hotstar, Netflix, and many more have encouraged more and more users to cut their traditional video subscriptions.
These platforms are mainly dependent on broadband services and therefore it was foreseen through the broadband industry analytics that new and well formulated broadband first strategies can take the telecommunications and video entertainment industry to another level.
Studies have found that traditional video subscriptions have been on a constant decline since the year 2010 but it was more interestingly observed that the decline has been huge in the past six years. This also means that the people have shifted to broadband first as their preferred choice of video consumption. As a result of this, set-top box rentals and video packaging businesses have been affected a great deal.
It was also seen that, the people who cut their cables and traditional video subscriptions are consuming broadband on an extremely high level which goes up to 500 GB per month. This has put a significant amount of load on operator networks and customer support systems.
The way the shift to broadband has been taking place over the years, it has been quite evident that the broadband industry is going to put the traditional cable or video subscription soon out of business. This might be one of the reasons why cable operators have been looking to make a shift to providing broadband services and forming broadband first strategies to gain new customers and give a variety of options to their existing customers.
Operators such as Cable one have introduced video streaming packages that have nothing to do with traditional video subscriptions to encourage them for a shift from traditional pay-TV to broadband services. Through such broadband first strategies Cable one has grown their broadband only customer base of up to 70% through a course of a single year. The success of Cable one has encouraged other operators to follow the same path and it won’t be too long before almost every operator will start to encourage their consumers to make the shift from traditional video subscription to broadband services.
It has been observed that, if the operators do decide to go the broadband way, they will need to form the right strategies and educate their consumers as to why going for broadband packages may prove beneficial to them. Along with this it will also become critical to form customer support teams that are available 24×7 to assist customers in any problems that they may face with their new subscriptions. Customer service is mainly important with broadband services because there might be quite a few network issues faced. All in all, it is safe to say that if broadband first technologies are to be the future of the telecommunication industry, then proper strategies and planning from the operators is what will keep them in business.
