Text messages fall behind

Abstract: In the understanding of micro-letter, such as OTT business will lose their lives, the three operators finally began to wake up to the micro-letter and other OTT business, pointing to the OTT enterprise to the traditional carrier of the squeeze is very obvious, and the network phone to describe the OTT business

In the understanding of micro-letter and other OTT business will "lose their lives", the three operators finally began to wake up, began to micro-letter and other OTT business, pointing to the OTT Enterprise to traditional telecom operators squeeze is very obvious, and using the network telephone to describe OTT business use the network of telecom operators to open free voice and video services, resulting in a large number of SMS, MMS, video and other business loss. Obviously, the two camps have reached a showdown.

Text messages fall behind

About the three major operators and Tencent recently began talks about OTT, the main content is how to monitor OTT business, and how to charge OTT business. The latest news says the two camps have now exchanged views and the game has begun.

Before, this year's Spring Festival text message of the number is particularly interesting, when the Ministry of Industry announced this spring Festival, mobile short MMS business volume again high innovation, telecommunications operators many people sighed.

Because the previous ministry of Information published by another statistical data is very not objective, 2012 the national Mobile text messaging volume of 897.31 billion, year-on-year growth of only 2.1%, an increase of 4 years to the lowest. In the last year, China's mobile phone users increased by 11% to calculate, in fact, the number of SMS sent per capita dropped about 9%.

The reason why the industry is so concerned about the Spring Festival New Year message is because people continue to observe the two camps, that is, whether the OTT business will continue to encroach on text messages, as well as the amount of encroachment.

OTT is "over the top" abbreviation, is now very popular a word, this word from basketball and other sports, originally is "pass the ball" meaning. In this way, OTT refers to internet companies crossing operators, developing a variety of video and data services based on open Internet, emphasizing the independence of services and physical networks.

The originator of the business comes from Skype, where Skype invented internet telephony, which allows people to speak freely to other users, or to call domestic and international calls. Later, Google and other Internet companies also follow suit, using the operator's broadband network to develop their own free voice call business. At home, Skype has long been stopped by the Ministry of Information industry, but Tencent's micro-letter rose later, and in the form of social business, but still a typical OTT business, because the micro-letter can achieve free voice calls, many Chinese people go abroad as long as the free internet immediately use micro-letter call, The reason is that international roaming calls can be dispensed with.

Telecoms operators are accused of "waking up Too Late"

For now, the three operators have finally woken up to what the OTT business means to them, even though it has been criticized by many as "too late to wake up."

The reason is very simple, many OTT service providers directly to the user to provide services and billing, so that operators become a simple "transmission pipeline", can not touch the great value of transmission pipeline.

Academician Hequan of Chinese Academy of Engineering believes that the OTT enterprises to invade the traditional telecommunications market has become a fact, in the domestic view, micro-letter progress, in the Internet monthly use of the business model, micro-credit and other IM services do not need to pay, become a disruptive OTT service operators. Its deep binding mobile phone Address Book features, SMS, voice and video, etc. constitute a strong alternative ability.

But it is strange that the three telecoms operators did not express their dissatisfaction with the OTT business until last November. At that time, at the 2012 China Mobile Global Developer conference, China Mobile's President Li said that with the development of the mobile Internet, traditional operators ' business is being hit hard, especially the OTT enterprises to the traditional operators squeeze is very obvious, these businesses so that operators of the original text messages, voice, Even the international phone business has been a big challenge.

Li directly pointed out: "China Mobile and Tencent also have a lot of exchanges, I hope Tencent's business has more development, but also hope that their business can protect the existing overall environment, to protect the customer's legal communication behavior."

Then, at the World Mobile Conference held in Barcelona in February this year, China Mobile's chairman, XI, issued a warning again, adding that "the heterogeneous substitution of Internet services is becoming more and more prominent, and it has not only replaced the value-added services such as SMS and MMS, but also diverted voice services." Industrial value is gradually moving from pipeline to content, from communication network to Internet, from voice service to information service. For operators, competition with internet companies will be more intense and severe than in traditional communications. In fact, he refers to the impact and substitution of OTT business.

wish to refer to the Korean precedent

It is reported that leading three operators to sit down with Tencent to negotiate OTT business is mainly the entire global telecommunications wind changes.

Globally, according to statistics, the volume of international calls increased by 13% in 2012. Among them, pay international call time length is 190 billion minutes, the annual growth 5%,skype call length reached 167 billion minutes, the annual increase of 44%, is the global operator international call volume increase twice times. This suggests that the OTT business has killed a large number of telecoms operator revenues, which has led to a collective discussion on how to deal with OTT Internet companies at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona, the global telecoms operator this year.

And South Korea has a head start. South Korea's Communications Commission recently approved a request from South Korean mobile operators, and since then, South Korean mobile operators will be able to charge OTT voice service providers, or "choke" the OTT voice stream and not open the network to OTT voice service providers.

South Korean operators are also facing threats from OTT service providers, a company called ' Kakao ' launched a large number of OTT services, but in the end, the South Korean government approved telecoms operators to adopt the most direct and original way to reject Ott.

This actually also gives the revelation, South Korea has always been the support of fair competition in the country, the dominant operator of the "asymmetric control" is a classic management case of the Korean telecommunications industry, and in South Korea, carrying the number of the network also made vigorous. But why does the Korean government support the crackdown on OTT? According to analysis, it is possible that the South Korean government believes that OTT enterprises, in the case of no investment, fully adopt the way to develop OTT business, which is not in line with the principle of fair competition.

For now, the three operators also have a lot of expectations for ministries such as the Ministry of Industry, where Skype's internet phone also wanted to enter the Chinese market, but was Mii forced to call it quits. But right now, Tencent is not the same as the Skype company that is foreign companies, micro-letter users have been very large, completely kill the call has been difficult, and the two sides to negotiate a fee model is a feasible way, because after all, nothing can be long free.