Cover Story
Cloud cancels CPE ?
The current economic climate means households are re-evaluating their spending on subscriptions . What role can CPE play in maintaining customer loyalty and helping to maximise the available spend from customers ? Colin Mann sought the views of a range of industry players .
According to Mark Hollett , director business development Roku , in providing devices that enable access to AVoD , BVoD and FAST services , operators can go a long way to maintaining customer loyalty by reducing consumer spend . “ To ensure as much loyalty as possible , the content catalogue needs to be easy to access , promotable and searchable at the UI level , and incorporate both a back catalogue and regular drops of new content that keeps the customer coming back for more ,” he advises .
“ The current crisis has had a strong impact on our economy and is clearly a catalyst for change ,” asserts Arnaud Bensaid , VP marketing , SoftAtHome , adding that operators need to answer to three customer objectives : Delivering a great broadband experience in all parts of the home ; limiting impact of inflation as the telecom ‘ share of wallet ’ has decreased over time with operators delivering more bandwidth and quality for the same price , and limiting the carbon footprint of the Broadband connectivity and services .
“ CPE has a clear role to deliver on these promises ,” he says . “ First , deliver the best
“ Customers often see the CPE in their homes as a commodity .” - Mark Hollett ,
Roku connectivity at home , so that coverage is optimum and there is no need to invest in new retail repeaters , which can result in a worse experience ; Second , be able to provide a rich set of applications delivering home services ( energy efficiency , remote control of home devices , etcetera ); Third , aggregate all services in one device without the need to buy a new TV set or OTT device , making it easy to switch from one SVoD to another .” COMPLEXITY . Mounir Toutah , product management and business development , video solutions , Technicolor , notes that with households evaluating how and where to get the content they want , this introduces complexity for network service providers who must strategically select the applications and services that will attract subscribers . “ CPE is going to play a major role in supporting two of the key constituents in this scenario ,” he suggests . “ For consumers , intelligent CPE can help address the increasing challenges associated with ‘ search and discovery ’ across multiple content service providers .”
“ CPE – and specifically intelligent set-top boxes – will play an important role in reducing the time to content enjoyment while ensuring the delivery of high-quality streaming . And when subscribers have an issue or a problem to resolve , they will have someone to call - the NSP ( network service provider ). This is not the case with app-based solutions ,” he states . “ Beyond content , consumers are looking for ways to integrate and manage the growing number of intelligent devices that are characterising the smart-home environment and that are using in-home wireless networks to access broadband connectivity to the cloud . CPE enhances performance , and , again , positions NSPs as the resource to call if
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