Traditional television viewing is giving way to streaming, but “Prime Time” is still prime time.

For cable operators contemplating shifts to “Broadband First” strategies that emphasise video streaming over traditional Pay TV packages, that’s a reality that can’t be ignored.  Even though streaming unlocks the ability to view content when and where users want, the simple truth is that life – work, school, personal commitments – means that most viewing takes place within narrowly defined windows of time.  In fact, OpenVault data shows that prime time data consumption is growing at a rate that is 5% faster than data consumption during non-prime time hours.

In a Broadband First environment, the engineering challenge for operators is to make sure that their networks are capable of satisfactorily handling the traffic increases that occur when “cord cutting” subscribers shift from traditional Pay TV packages to streamed video.  The greater challenge for operators is to ensure that subscriber experiences are satisfactory during peak viewing periods when the demand for network resources is greatest.

The facts don’t lie. Average broadband usage grew 27% while median usage was up 32% between the end of 2018 and the end of 2019. The distinction is important: Faster median growth means that more subscribers are consuming more data, compounding the impact on operators’ infrastructures.

Many of these cord-cutters are shedding the Pay TV set-top box but not their TV viewing habits. OpenVault research has shown that in peak hours bandwidth needs can significantly exceed the norm – by as much as 80% on average. Networks must be engineered and policies designed to ensure that traffic demand can be accommodated, including bandwidth to handle prime time and future growth that is certain to follow:

• Table stakes for Broadband First is ensuring that the network infrastructure can support the increased data load, now and in the future.  While early cord cutters recognised that they might sacrifice some video quality and reliability, ensuing generations will have higher expectations as operators themselves promote the concept of high definition streaming.
• In Broadband First environments, visibility into network performance is more critical than ever. Real-time network health and accurate forecasts of network growth are essential to optimising customer experiences and reducing operational costs of customer care calls and truck rolls.
• With power user data consumption – defined as those subscribers consuming more than 1 TB of data per month – up 81% year-over-year, operators should surgically implement solutions and policies that ensure that all customers’ service quality levels align with their broadband packages. This includes alerting subscribers to excessive use in real time, enabling them to enact real-time changes to service level agreements to accommodate increased speed and consumption, and triggering solutions when service level abuse continues.

Although it’s not an engineering technique, another reliable method of managing subscriber experiences is Usage Based Billing (UBB).  UBB subscribers consume data at a rate that is more than 5% lower than that of subscribers on Flat Rate Billing (FRB) plans. UBB subscribers also are 12% less likely than FRB customers to exceed the 1 TB threshold and 38% less likely than FRB subscribers to be “super users” consuming more than 2 TB of data. An additional benefit: A recent case study has shown that an operator who shifted to UBB from FRB realised a near-term ARPU increase of nearly 14%.

In the coming year, OpenVault anticipates that “Broadband First” approaches will continue to gain traction across the industry. As operators weigh the shift, it is essential that they make sure that their networks and policies are – literally and figuratively – “ready for Prime Time.”

With the proliferation of devices, Wi-Fi is becoming the primary connection between broadband services and the subscriber devices on which they increasingly are relying to view OTT content. In the UK alone, OTT video service subscriptions have surpassed traditional Pay TV subscriptions, according to Ofcom. Park Associates estimates that the percentage of UK broadband households that were likely to cancel their subscriptions as of late 2018 had doubled to 24 per cent from 12 per cent just three years earlier.

The problem this poses for operators is this: even when home Wi-Fi networks are installed by customers themselves, those same customers associate Wi-Fi speed, coverage and reliability as quality elements of the operators’ delivered broadband service. With video consumption shifting away from managed networks, operators face challenges of keeping up with demand, enabling faster speeds, managing network connectivity, and providing quality of experience – even on Wi-Fi networks for which they are not responsible.

These subscriber management issues will only increase with the imminent explosion of 4K and UHD streaming video content, as well as IoT and streaming video gaming. For example, regardless of the bandwith quality to the home, subscribers routinely call Customer Care departments to demand answers regarding slow Internet speeds, excessive buffering and lack of network connectivity on Wi-Fi connected video devices. Without visibility into the subscriber’s end-to-end service delivery, data usage and device environment, the customer service representative will usually resort to sending a technician to the subscriber’s home/office — a costly and time-consuming truck-roll endeavor.

Resolving issues more quickly and more cost-effectively requires deeper visibility into the home combined with prescriptive and automated remediation before trucks are rolled.  In order to diagnose problems, manage network capacity and provide an optimal user experience, operators’ customer care departments need a holistic view of the entire delivery ecosystem, from the serving network, node, and modem health all the way down to the Wi-Fi and ethernet connected devices.

While operators have been monitoring overall network health for some time, awareness of the performance of Wi-Fi-connected devices within the home is only now emerging as a priority. The key is real-time and proactive troubleshooting, diagnosis and resolution of problems; for example, visibility into the Wi-Fi signal strength of devices within a home can enable subscribers’ issues to be resolved on the first call, without requiring a tech home visit. This capability will become increasingly important as more and more major sports and entertainment events are streamed live.

By leveraging the TR-069 protocol via an Auto-Configuration Server, operators can gain unprecedented visibility into the home, providing device-level analysis — including the number of devices currently and historically connected to the modem and the signal strength each device is exhibiting – while protecting the privacy of the subscriber. Combining TR-069 data with usage behavior and network performance  produces the most accurate and complete view of the entire network-subscriber environment. Machine learning can augment the visibility into the end-to-end service delivery quality of each subscriber with the execution of prescriptive actions based on the detected conditions.

Early implementations of this approach are showing tangible operational and business benefits – including reduction of calls to customer care, reductions in overall call times, truck rolls and technical support escalation – all of which can reduce operating costs and improve overall customer satisfaction. The effect of this real-time, holistic visibility and prescriptive automated resolution resonates throughout the entire operator organization:

• Customer Care can use the insights to better service subscribers and provide tangible cost savings;
• Engineering can see which connected devices might be causing issues on the network, allowing for proactive actions and avoiding quality of service issues; and
• Marketing and Sales can use device topology information to help identify subscribers whose video consumption would be better served by a faster bandwidth package.

With video streaming growth showing no sign of abating, operators must come to grips with the clear correlation between the number and type of devices inside the home and the bandwidth required to provide quality service. Such a holistic view of network and device ecosystems can help right-size subscribers, encouraging their migration to packages that increase video quality of experience while driving more revenue. By leveraging these technologies and tools, operators can realise increased customer satisfaction and retention as well as reduced costs and increased revenue, all of which are critical to success on the broadband frontier.