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Mobile Content Sharing Market
26/06/08
Pioneer
Consulting’s new study on ‘Multimedia Mobile Content Distribution’
shows that a significant portion of multimedia content on mobile
phones is either user generated or is simply being stored on the
handset. This content, termed User Originated Content (UOC) is being
increasingly shared with friends, family and contacts on social
networks. With handsets starting to have Bluetooth, WiFi and WiMAX
capabilities, end users can use alternative networks to share
content, effectively bypassing the operator’s mobile network and the
content value chain.
Pioneer Consulting estimates that as a result of users sharing
content and bypassing the existing value chain, $16.4 billion worth
of revenue opportunity will be at risk by 2012. This is estimated to
be more than a quarter of the total revenue opportunity for that
year.
However, the study says that all is not lost yet and operators can
play a key role in preventing this disruption from happening. To
begin, mobile operators need to re-evaluate the applicability of the
traditional client-server content delivery architecture in an
environment where a large portion of the content originates from the
handset. In addition, operators need to realize that there will be a
bandwidth bottleneck between the base station and the handset due to
an oversubscribed air interface, especially in the case of bandwidth
heavy multimedia content.
Robert Hsieh, author of the report says that, “Mobile operators need
to embrace peer to peer (P2P) methodologies within their own
networks and focus on the advantages of using both assisted P2P and
augmented P2P to mitigate the disruption”. Aditya Kaul, Senior
Analyst, Emerging Wireless at Pioneer adds that, “P2P is generally
treated with contempt by operators and has now become the ‘P’ word
that should never be uttered. It is more of an attitude problem
rather than an engineering one. Unless operators wake up to reality,
we cannot even begin to solve the problem”.
Nick Gibson, editor
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