“There’s a $260 billion advertising industry out there just trying to get at this data,” Von McConnell told attendees of the Broadband World Forum. But it’s not just advertisers that are hungry for Big Data: retail outlets, corporate brands, loyalty clubs, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and more are clamoring to compete and differentiate with better customer insights and experiences. They’re all looking into their crystal ball and, more importantly, investing in the technology that holds the promise of divining and influencing customer behavior.

Who better to provide this data than CSPs? People around the world spend more time on their multiple mobile devices than any other tool in the history of mankind. “CSPs’ access to mobile users in particular and their data provide a compelling proposition for advertisers looking to improve their returns,” according to Justin van der Lande, senior analyst at Analysys Mason, who posted the statement on the firm’s website in April.

Evolving use cases 

According to ABI Research analyst, Sabir Rafiq, “MNOs and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are actively looking into Big Data and Analytical solutions. They need tools that can impact their businesses and find new ways to reduce costs, improve efficiency of the networks, increase and generate new revenue streams, and increase QoE.”

Solutions are available from a wide range of vendors today. Rafiq highlighted this market shift in a recent report. “Big Data Analytics are no longer the exclusive province of IT Software, as leading telecom vendors such as Astellia, Ericsson, Nokia Solutions and Networks, and Huawei have stepped up. Software vendors, including Citrix and Guavus, offer big data and analytical solutions to help telecoms collect and analyze data effectively.”

Key aspects of a successful mobile big data analytics offering include the ability to easily identify the most important data relevant to networks, users, services, and devices. This has created a demand for more robust big data solutions. In a recent press release naming IBM, Oracle, SAP, and SAS as the leaders in the business intelligence space Surya Mukherjee, Senior Analyst at Ovum was quoted saying: “data creation, preparation, and consumption are now merging into one activity. Enterprises expect vendors to automate data mapping to the extent that data created or updated in one system should reflect immediately in others. This requires a greater focus on data management technologies, but without the encumbrances of long, drawn-out, IT-driven deployments. Business should be the driving force for data.” 

OTT enablement

Most of the growth in data traffic has come from OTT services; and when they cause problems, oftentimes it’s the connectivity service provider, not the app developer, that has to field the support calls. Put into perspective, CSPs are often inadvertently enabling and supporting the very businesses that are cannibalizing their revenue streams.

This state of affairs probably won’t change, so why not go all the way? CSPs could become the CEM enabler for the most popular services on the planet—and charge for them. Right now the only companies with the ability to realize an end-to-end view of traffic, service, network, and device performance are the ones controlling the pipes. Unfortunately, the raw services they provide have become commodities but the value of the network, network functions, and the value of controlling the QoS (Quality of Service) remains uniquely with those that own and manage them.

Crafting deals with OTT players that leverage network and subscriber data enables the OTTs to deliver a guaranteed quality of service (QoS). In this manner, the data can be monetized as a premium service offering and delivered through myriad retail channels, including both the OTTs’ and CSPs’ portals and third-party platforms such as Xbox Live. Some service providers are already taking notice. In February of this year, Comcast and OTT giant Netflix announced they had struck a QoS agreement after "many months" of discussions.

Furthermore, the OTTs can pay to access the customer bases of large telcos in order to expand their premium offerings into new markets. This strategy is already being implemented by some CSPs: Telefónica recently announced a global partnership with Evernote to provide Evernote Premium for its customers in Latin America, and Deutsche Telekom has joined up with Spotify to offer Spotify Premium to DT customers. Several of the world's leading service providers, such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone, Rogers, Bell Canada and TELUS, are even going a step further by opening up network functions to OTT developers through APIs through their participation in the GMSA's OneAPI initiative.

Domain expertise still crucial

While big data solutions are available from many large firms, telecom-specific expertise is an important factor. As we explore in another article this month, asking the right questions of big data is just as important as how much data a solution can store, process, or manage. Still, a future exists where data becomes the differentiating element of value for communication service providers. Building that ship today guarantees a business will stay afloat in tomorrow's stormy weather.