ABI Research said that broadcasters and service providers will be decreasing marketing on their cable, satellite, and IPTV products that offer managed quality of service in favor of new products that use over the top (OTT) technologies to compete with Amazon and Netflix. With OTT competition significantly increasing in mature pay-TV markets, ABI Research forecasts that live linear OTT video services will grow to approximately $7 billion dollars of worldwide revenue by 2021, from a little more than $1 billion in 2016.
Delivering these services comes with many technical challenges. Developing robust content management systems, video transcoding and storage pipelines, application ecosystems, and piecing together adequate video distribution networks are just the beginning. Quality of service assurance, network congestion management, content protection including analytics-based protection, such as modules which limit password sharing, and business analytics are some of the technical challenges to offer mobile OTT services. As mobile video consumption increases, mobile operators are exploring policy-based approaches to meet customer expectations and manage the effects of video services on mobile data caps.
The technical challenges are so significant that many operators made significant investments in technology platforms. AT&T/DirecTV purchased Quickplay Technologies to gain better control of its OTT launch. Even so, some outages occurred as the platform scaled. Disney took an equity stake in BAMTech (formerly MLB Advanced Media) to have better strategic control over its syndication platform.
