Over-the-top Service Providers Research Articles

Understanding Mobile OTT Service Users' Resistance to Participation in Wireless D2D Caching Networks.

With the explosive pace of mobile over-the-top (OTT) video content streaming services, mobile network traffic has seen unprecedented growth in recent years. However, the limitation of antenna performance, the burden of investment cost, and restricted resources hinder improving the current mobile networks' functionality. Accordingly, wireless device-to-device (D2D) caching networks came to the fore as one of the competitive alternatives for alleviating the overloads of mobile network traffic. Wireless D2D caching networks can be a desirable alternative for OTT service providers and telecommunication operators, but the problem is user resistance. User participation is imperative to deliver wireless D2D caching network functionality successfully. Thus, to gain a deeper understanding of user resistance toward wireless D2D caching networks and their underlying sources, this study introduces two perceived cost factors contributing to this resistance and one perceived benefit that mitigates such resistance. Based on an online survey, this study found new theoretical links among perceived costs and benefits, resistance, and participation intention. The findings reveal that user resistance is predicted by perceived costs, encompassing resource sacrifices and privacy concerns, whereas perceived benefits-specifically, perceived usefulness-did not significantly influence resistance. This implies that telecommunication operators should prioritize market requirements over technological advantages, emphasizing the potential for successful commercialization of wireless D2D caching networks.

Exploring the Prospect of Over-the-Top (OTT) Platforms in Bangladesh: A Study on the Users of Khulna District

Introduction: Over-the-Top (OTT) services are developing rapidly in line with the technolo gies’ fast advancement. With the emergence of OTT platforms, the viewing experience has seen a drastic change. OTT platforms are becoming more attractive to viewers due to their diversity of content and less advertisements. The main purpose of this study is to understand the perception and satisfaction of the OTT users of Khulna District. This study also aims to investigate the OTT video streaming habits and preferences of the users. Methods: This study is based on a survey method to know the viewer’s engagement, perception and satisfaction using OTT platforms. Using the convenience sampling technique, an online survey is admin istered to collect feedback from 200 respondents. Results: The findings of this study revealed that 48.5% people prefer OTT platforms as their major source of entertainment to television or other video streaming platforms. According to the study, Chorki is the viewer’s most popular OTT video streaming service. A majority of OTT subscribers thought that the subscription fees in Bangladesh are higher (42.5%). Censorship is required for semi-nude or sex-based stories in OTT platforms, according to the majority of the users (47%). Therefore, majority of the sub scribers are not satisfied with the content of these platforms (34%). Most of them (49%) faced technical difficulties while using OTT platforms. Conclusion: In Bangladesh, OTT platforms have enormous potentials. As the market for these services are expanding swiftly and investors are recognizing its protectives. This study is expected to help OTT service providers in design ing their contents and services.

Exploring new dimensions in OTT consumption: an empirical study on perceived risks, descriptive norms and goal-directed behaviour

PurposeWith over-the-top (OTT) streaming services rapidly transforming the media industry and saturating the market, the authors' study seeks to enrich the goal-directed behaviour model by exploring how perceived risks and descriptive norms influence OTT consumption.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data from OTT subscribers were collected online to assess their risk behaviours. The 353 responses obtained were analysed with SmartPLS, validating the structural equation modelling (SEM) through structural and measurement model verification.FindingsThe authors' findings illustrate that descriptive norm, perceived behavioural control, as well as positive and negative anticipated emotion (NEM) and attitude, contribute positively to the desire to engage with OTT streaming services. Interestingly, the authors' study contradicts common assumptions, revealing that subjective norms do not significantly impact the propensity to utilise OTT services. This counterintuitive finding necessitates a reconsideration of prevalent theories and contributes to a nuanced understanding of OTT adoption determinants.Research limitations/implicationsThe data gathering for this study were conducted from the perspective of a single nation. Therefore, caution must be exercised when generalising this study's results.Practical implicationsThe practical ramifications of this research are vast, providing OTT service providers and marketers with actionable insights to maximise user engagement and navigate perceived risks related to OTT service adoption and consumption.Originality/valueThis study's exploration of perceived risks and descriptive norms enhances the goal-directed behaviour model's breadth, facilitating a holistic comprehension of the constructs shaping OTT consumption behaviours. It would be the first attempt to combine perceptual, affective and behavioural factors and perceived risks to understand the user's predisposition to engage in OTT streaming services.

Factors Influencing Switching Intention and Customer Retention of Over-the-Top (OTT) Viewing Behavior in Taiwan: The Push–Pull– Mooring Model

The proliferation of over-the-top (OTT) platforms, offering a wide array of on-demand content accessible through the Internet, has reshaped the media landscape and transformed viewing habits. This has led to a decline in traditional cable TV subscriptions and reduced revenue for telecom operators who often bundle TV services with their broadband offerings. The acquisition of customers and retention of existing ones are critical objectives of OTT service providers in Taiwan, and understanding consumer switching behavior can assist them in maintaining their competitiveness. Therefore, the current study applied the push–pull–mooring model to delineate the determinants of users’ switching and retention intention on OTT services. An online survey of 500 individuals was conducted to collect data for this research. This study investigates the factors that affect users who switch or stay in OTT services to gain a specific understanding of how push (service value and customer satisfaction), pull (attractiveness of alternatives and social influence), and mooring (switching costs and habit) effects shape their behavior. Our empirical model provides compelling rationales for understanding the principal antecedents of switching and retention intentions. In addition to push and pull effects, this study also highlights the importance of examining the moderating effects of OTT switching behaviors, such as switching costs and habit experience. Moreover, this study empirically and theoretically extends the understanding of push, pull, and mooring effects on OTT service-switching decisions.

In the era of COVID-19, is watching TV through OTT services becoming a digital leisure activity of choice?

This study sought to examine the interrelationships among lifestyle, entertainment preferences, and the utilization of Over-The-Top (OTT) services as digital leisure activity. Specifically, the research was designed to delve into the use of OTT services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea. First, the findings indicated that those with a high preference for some leisure and entertainment activities, such as watching sports games and performing arts, showed an increased use of OTT from 2019 to 2020. Lifestyle elements, favorite OTT program genre, and leisure and entertainment preference factors have a significant effect on the intention to continue using OTT as a digital leisure activity. This study suggests that OTT service providers should take into account users’ characteristics when developing their services.

Conceptualization and Survey Instrument Development for Over-the-Top Platforms’ Usability

OTT (over-the-top) streaming is a subscription-based video service model that delivers video-on-demand content, films, and series directly to end-users over the Internet, bypassing the need for traditional satellite receiver systems. The most popular OTT service providers include Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney+. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the viewership rates and subscriber numbers for OTT platforms rapidly increased. Like various other products and systems, usability problems can substantially impact user satisfaction, loyalty, and the intention to continue using OTT services. Therefore, this study aimed to conceptualize the usability of OTT platforms and develop an OTT Usability Measurement Scale for the usability evaluation of OTT platforms based on the Apple tvOS Guidelines and the literature. OTT platform usability was conceptualized with nine constructs, including Accessibility and Customization, Account Management, Data Entry and Search, Branding, Privacy, Navigation, Help, Content, and Design, and the concepts were measured with a scale including 48 items. The validity of the developed scale was tested through two separate survey studies conducted with Netflix web application users. The first survey involved 650 participants. At this stage, an exploratory factor analysis was used to evaluate the scale’s measurement properties, and the developed factor structure was confirmed. In the second stage, a survey with 600 participants was conducted, and a confirmatory factor analysis was applied to validate the scale properties. Furthermore, a nomological validation of the developed scale was performed, examining the relationship between the acquired OTT factors and elements such as continued intention to use, satisfaction, and brand loyalty. As a result of the nomological validation, it was observed that the privacy and design factors significantly affected each of the three dependent variables.

Caged, helpless but not bored: consumption values derived from over-the-top platforms during pandemic

PurposeThe use of over-the-top (OTT) platforms grew substantially after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With the pandemic receding, there is a concern that users may not continue with their subscriptions. To counter this, OTT service providers must strategize proactively to retain and acquire new users once the pandemic abates. Positing that understanding the consumption values that users ascribe to OTT platform usage can provide useful customer retention insights, the purpose of this paper is to use the theory of consumption value (TCV) to study the values that users derived from their use of OTT following the onset of the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe mixed-method approach is used to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Analysis of qualitative responses collected through interviews of 12 current OTT platform users helped identify two categories of OTT platform-specific values: attribute-level and benefit-based. Next, the study examined the association of values thus identified with one another, as well as with continued intentions to use OTT platforms, by analyzing data collected from 371 existing users.FindingsThe findings indicated that functional value quality and social value, representing the attribute-level values, were positively associated with two benefit-based values – functional value price and emotional value (EMV). Next, EMV was not only associated with intentions but also partially mediated the association of attribute-level values with intentions. Premium subscription purchased and increased viewing time were confirmed to have moderating effects on the association between attribute-level and benefit-based values.Originality/valueThe study is amongst the foremost research initiatives to examine consumption values derived from OTT platform usage after the onset of the pandemic. Its novelty also comes from its identifying OTT platform-specific consumption values for the first time and adding a new dimension to the TCV by examining the interplay of these values in the OTT platform context.

Enablers to intensify OTT streaming services among consumers: a study using TISM-MICMAC approach

Over-the-top (OTT) is an application, content and services created for consumers which are accessible through internet. There are many challenges for OTT entertainment industry like understanding the audience choices, irrelevant or inappropriate contents, poor service experience, cost of services, etc. The growth and development of an OTT platform depends on multiple factors. Therefore, the study focuses on identifying various factors from literature which influence consumers' desire to subscribe an OTT service platform. The study deployed multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, namely 'total interpretive structural modelling' (TISM) and 'cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification' (MICMAC) to study cross-inter-relationship among factors. The study proposes a unique model that recommends developing strategies along two pathways as 'service quality' and 'consumers' affordability'. This study will help the OTT service providers to execute their services offerings to target new consumers as well as retaining their existing consumers.

A Novel Deep-Learning-Enabled QoS Management Scheme for Encrypted Traffic in Software-Defined Cellular Networks

Mobile users are served with over-the-top (OTT) services through their cellular networks. To ensure the privacy of users and confidentiality of content, most OTT service providers encrypt their traffic. When a cellular network has no information about the type of service, a default bearer may be created. However, the default bearer may not guarantee bandwidth to a service. Therefore, users may experience degraded service due to packet loss, delay, and reduced data rates. This article proposes a novel quality-of-service (QoS) management scheme for encrypted traffic in software-defined cellular networks. We introduce a deep-learning-enabled intelligent gateway to predict the service types of encrypted flows by considering statistical and QoS features. A QoS control manager maps the bearers to ongoing flows satisfying their QoS requirements. As a proof of concept, we implement a testbed considering encrypted traffic from the Tor network. Results indicate that the proposed scheme improves the network throughput by 41&#x0025;, decreases packet loss, delay, and QoS violations by 51&#x0025;, 21&#x0025;, and 52&#x0025;, respectively, and reduces the length and size of the queue at the base station compared to those of the conventional scheme. Moreover, the convolutional-neural-network-based classifier achieves higher accuracy, precision, recall, and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F1$</tex-math></inline-formula>-score, as well as lower loss values, compared to the multilayer perceptron classifier.

Prediction of Content Success and Cloud-Resource Management in Internet-of-Media-Things Environments

In Internet-of-Media-Things (IoMT) environments, users can access and view high-quality Over-the-Top (OTT) media services anytime and anywhere. As the number of OTT platform users has increased, the original content offered by such OTT platforms has become very popular, further increasing the number of users. Therefore, effective resource-management technology is an essential aspect for reducing service-operation costs by minimizing unused resources while securing the resources necessary to provide media services in a timely manner when the user’s resource-demand rates change rapidly. However, previous studies have investigated efficient cloud-resource allocation without considering the number of users after the release of popular content. This paper proposes a technology for predicting and allocating cloud resources in the form of a Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM)-based reinforcement-learning method that provides information for OTT service providers about whether users are willing to watch popular content using the Korean Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformer (KoBERT). Results of simulating the proposed technology verified that efficient resource allocation can be achieved by maintaining service quality while reducing cloud-resource waste depending on whether content popularity is disclosed.

Determinants of continuance intention for over-the-top services

We investigated the effects of factors determining people's continuance intentions for using over-the-top (OTT) services. We used the expectation–confirmation model (ECM) and the information systems success model as the basic theoretical framework, and included habit as an extension to the ECM. Data were collected through an online survey of 226 Korean adults aged in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, who were users of Netflix, a representative OTT service. The results show that perceived usefulness was positively related to user satisfaction, and that habit was a major antecedent in increasing continuance intentions. The quality factors from the information systems success model were positively related to user satisfaction, habit, and continuance intention. Our results provide implications for both OTT service providers and users, by exploring factors that influence continuance intention after the adoption of OTT services.

THE ROLE OF OVER THE TOP (OTT) SERVICE ON UTILIZATION OF TELECOMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURE BASED ON INDONESIAN TAX AND NON-TAX POLICY

The rapid development of Over the Top (OTT) services has enabled consumers to enjoy high service quality from technology even more. Nevertheless, OTT also brings other effects for telecommunications companies in Indonesia; namely, there are legal problems and obstacles faced regarding regulation and practice of tax and non-tax for OTT business providers because these services do not have a form of cooperation with telecommunications operators. In addition, the model of policies and regulations is still uncertain regarding how the tax and non-tax imposition should be in Indonesia. This study uses a normative juridical research method emphasizing secondary data (library research) with three legal materials, namely primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials. The research includes data searching and inventory and laws and regulations related to tax and non-tax imposition for OTT services on the utilization of telecommunication infrastructure and other relevant sources. Results of the study determine the extent to which regulations on the tax and non-tax imposition govern OTT media in Indonesia to understand and find the policy and regulatory issues related to tax and non-tax imposition practices faced by OTT business actors. In addition, it also aims to find obstacles in policy formulation and stipulation of tax and non-tax regulations for OTT business actors in Indonesia. Further, it seeks to find a tax and non-tax policies and regulations model for OTT business actors in Indonesia through a service collaboration, comparative, and normative approaches. Hence, this will also open up opportunities to increase state revenue from the imposition of tax and non-tax from all OTT service providers, both national and international.

Location-Privacy Leakage and Integrated Solutions for 5G Cellular Networks and Beyond.

The fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks improves the precision of user localization and provides the means to disclose location information to over-the-top (OTT) service providers. The network data analytics function (NWDAF) can further elaborate this information at an aggregated level using artificial intelligence techniques. These powerful features may lead to the improper use of user location information by mobile network operators (MNOs) and OTT service providers. Moreover, vulnerabilities at various layers may also leak user location information to eavesdroppers. Hence, the privacy of users is likely at risk, as location is part of their sensitive data. In this paper, we first go through the evolution of localization in cellular networks and investigate their effects on location privacy. Then, we propose a location-privacy-preserving integrated solution comprising virtual private mobile networks, an independent authentication and billing authority, and functions to protect wireless signals against location information leakage. Moreover, we advocate the continuous and detailed control of localization services by the user.

Over-The-Top (OTT) Media Application using Flutter

An Over-The-Top (OTT) Media is a streaming media service offered directly to the viewers through internet. The OTT service providers provides the program types like news, movies, daily soaps, web shows as well as cable TV. Nowadays, the businesses all over the world are offering an unbelievable amount of variety in media content and the traditional way of broadcasting on cable TV cannot efficiently represent or contain the wide range of media content. Considering these problems, we are making an OTT application for Next Screen Productions. So, they can produce their media content on internet through this application. We will be using Flutter, which is an open-source User Interface (UI) toolkit and Dart Programming Language which are created by Google. For storage of data, we are using Firebase. For recommendation of content, recommendation algorithms will be used.

On the Tussle Between Over-the-Top and Internet Service Providers: Analysis of the Netflix- Comcast Type of Deals

Over-the-top (OTT) services reach users via the open Internet without dedicated infrastructures and have experienced enormous growth in recent years. Netflix, an OTT streaming provider, now accounts for more than one-third of peak U.S. downstream traffic and causes cord-cutting of traditional cable pay-TV services from incumbent Internet service providers (ISPs). However, the service quality of video streaming is still influenced by the last-mile Internet access providers, who do not have incentives to deploy enough capacity and want to charge OTT service providers (OSPs) for direct connection. Although Netflix has reached deals with ISPs such as Comcast and Verizon to improve service quality, their undisclosed agreements have raised concerns about net neutrality. In this article, we study the economics of the Netflix-Comcast type of deals and derive the conditions under which an OSP and an ISP would reach such a deal. We analyze the impact of a deal transaction on the revenue of providers, the utility of users and the social welfare. Based on these results, we further classify different policy regimes and draw regulatory implications that depend on the intensity of ex-post deal competition and the cost of the deal. Our results can help understand how existing deals were made, how future deals might emerge, and how regulators should respond to various market conditions and scenarios.

Discussion of the Competitive Strategies of Telecom Operators and Over-the-Top Service Providers from the Perspective of Evolutionary Game Theory

Over-the-top (OTT) service refers to content included in basic telecommunications subscriptions without the additional features provided by telecom operators. The booming OTT business has had a huge impact on traditional telecommunications businesses such as voice and short message services, and the sense of crisis among telecommunications operators shows that the channeling trend has become more and more obvious. Faced with competition on the distribution of interests between channels and contents, telecommunications operators and OTT service providers are engaged in a fierce competition and cooperation game. To explore this competition relationship, this paper first establishes an evolutionary model, discussing the competition and cooperation behaviors of telecommunications operators and OTT service providers, and then conducts research on the degree of the effects of cooperation in terms of the combination of strategic factors, including cooperation cost sharing, the benefits distribution mechanism, research and development benefits, spillover effect, and network externality. Additionally, a replicator dynamic system is developed to study the influence of related strategic factors on evolutionary equilibrium. Finally, to verify the theoretical results, a simulation experiment is conducted to further clarify the meaning of the model and obtain meaningful results. The evolutionary game model and method provided in this paper are expected to help both parties make better decisions for future operating strategies.

Efficiency Perspective on Telecom Mobile Data Traffic

Objective – The global industry is transforming into a digital world, evidenced by digital transformation performed by almost all of the industry sectors. One of the digital drivers is the support of connectivity provided by the telecommunication industry. The increasing mobile subscribers, along with the growth of mobile data traffic, is the sign of digital transformation itself. However, the rise of OTT (Over the Top) service providers tends to acquire the revenue share of the current telecom industry, seeing the trend of voice and SMS revenue that projected to decline. Methodology/Technique – This research is intended to measure the impact of increasing mobile data traffic that mostly caused by OTT services to telecom efficiency. The efficiency measurement &amp; analysis were performed using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) &amp; Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. Findings – By using the SFA method, Maxis (Malaysia) got the highest efficiency score (0.98), followed by AIS (Thailand) with efficiency score 0.94 and Indosat Ooredoo (Indonesia) as the least efficient telecom provider (0.5). However, by using the DEA method, TLKM (Indonesia) got the highest efficient (0.98), and Celcom Axiata (Malaysia) was the least efficient (0.73/0.8). Novelty – The compelling results of this study are variable total asset variable had a significant negative impact on the efficiency score, and the variable of mobile data traffic was not significantly impacting the efficiency value (t-Ratio 0.71). Type of Paper: Empirical. Keywords: Telecom Operators; Efficiency; Mobile Data Traffic Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hendrawan, R; Nugroho, K.W.A; Permana,G.T. 2019. Efficiency Perspective on Telecom Mobile Data Traffic, J. Bus. Econ. Review 5(1) 38 – 44 https://doi.org/10.35609/jber.2020.5.1(5) JEL Classification: M10, M15, M19.

Evaluating the efficiency change and productivity progress of the top global telecom operators since OTT's prevalence

The telecommunications industry has undergone significant evolvement from fixed to mobile substitution (FMS) to fixed mobile convergence (FMC) and now to over-the-top (OTT) services due to the huge rise in data usage. This paper explores efficiency variation during the period 2012–2017 for the top 41 global telecom operators in Forbes Global, 2000. Based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) meta-frontier approach to reflect differences in production functions, the empirical results herein show that the number of operators achieving technical efficiency with respect to the meta-frontier fell from 13 firms in 2012 to 10 firms in 2013 to 8 firms in 2014 to 8 firms in 2015 and then to 7 firms in 2016, but then rose to 11 firms in 2017, displaying the impact from rise in OTT. For the mobile-only group, the average technical efficiency with respect to the meta-frontier is 0.841, which is superior to the fixed-mobile group's 0.774 and the fixed-only group's 0.714, and the group difference is significant among the three facilities-based groups. The meta-frontier estimation suggests that the fixed-mobile group has the highest meta-technology ratio (MTR) of 0.901 versus the mobile-only group's 0.886 and fixed-only group's 0.718. The empirical results offer policy implications for regulators to encourage telecom operators to have fixed-mobile operations. We further suggest that telecom operators cooperate with OTT service providers and invest in them in order to take advantage of people's more personalized digital life.

Mobility Prediction-Assisted Over-the-Top Edge Prefetching for Hierarchical VANETs

Content prefetching brings contents close to end users before their explicit requests to reduce the content retrieval time, which is crucial for mobile scenarios, such as vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). In order to make intelligent prefetching decisions, three questions have to be answered: which content should be prefetched, when and where it should be prefetched. This paper answers these questions by proposing a vehicle mobility prediction-based over-the-top (OTT) content prefetching solution. We proposed a vehicle mobility prediction module to estimate the future connected roadside units (RSUs) using data traces collected from a real-world VANET testbed deployed in the city of Porto, Portugal. We designed a multi-tier caching mechanism with an OTT content popularity estimation scheme to forecast the content request distribution. We implemented a learning-based algorithm to proactively prefetch the user content to VANET edge caching at RSUs. We implemented a prototype using Raspberry Pi emulating RSU nodes to prove the system functionality. We also performed large-scale OpenStack experiments to validate the system scalability. Extensive experiment results prove that the system can bring benefits for both end-users and OTT service providers, which help them to optimize network resource utilization and reduce bandwidth consumption.

Matching Theory for Over-the-Top Service Provision in 5G Networks

Modern over-the-top (OTT) applications can be accessed via Internet connections over cellular networks, possibly shared and managed by multiple mobile network operators (MNOs). The OTT service providers (OSPs) need to interact with MNOs, requesting resources for serving users of different categories and with different quality-of-service requirements. For this purpose, OSPs need OTT application flow prioritization in resource allocation, while the network resource scheduling should respect network neutrality that forbids OSP prioritization. OSPs also need to request resources periodically, according to their performance goals, i.e., grade-of-service (GoS) level (blocking probability), causing delay in flows’ accommodation due to: 1) the time required for information exchange between OSPs and MNOs, affected by network congestion, and 2) the time required for flows to receive resources, affected by the number of concurrently active flows. Acknowledging the lack of OSP-oriented resource management approaches, we: 1) introduce a novel matching theoretic flow prioritization (MTFP) algorithm that respects network neutrality and 2) design analytical models that enable the thorough investigation of the GoS and delay performance in various scenarios. Our results (analytical and simulation) show that MTFP improves both metrics compared to the best effort approach, whereas its performance is affected by the number of flows and the resource allocation frequency.