1. Over-the-Top (OTT) :
A Regulator's Perspective
Dr. Sigit Puspito Wigati (sigit@brti.or.id)
Commissioner at Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (BRTI)
APEC-TEL 47 Regulatory Roundtable
Denpasar, Indonesia 23-April-2012

2. Outline
• What is OTT
• How OTT operates
• OTT implications on Regulation

3. OTT - the definition
• OTT – Over-the-Top stands for applications and
services that do not have any infra structure
• The term OTT (Over-The-Top) is used to refer to
the content or services provided over an
infrastructure that’s not under the control of the
service provider or infrastructure operator.
• It started out referring to audio and video content,
but recently has expanded to any service or
content in general available on the internet.

4. Why OTT become an Issue ?

5. Why OTT become an Issue?
• OTT apps offer 'free' services to utilize
connectivity
• OTT services break the relationship with
consumer and risk Telco operators being
seen as 'dumb pipes'
• ..

6. OTT vs Telco battlegrounds
•
•
•
•
Battleground #1:
Battleground #2:
Battleground #3:
Battleground #4:
Mobile voice
Messaging
Media
Cloud services

7. Net-neutrality
• Traditionally, the term has been used to
define a principle of non-discrimination of
Internet content by Internet service
providers, but I have seen it used in a
broader fashion to include other concepts
such as blocking, censorship and
connectivity.
• In short, net neutrality could be loosely
defined as a principle that advocates that
all Internet content is created equal.

8. Net neutrality : BB developing
economy perspective
• Traffic shaping and throttling is of less
concern if significant amount population is
not broadband ready at all, and where
broadband speeds are not up to scratch.
• This may sound defeatist, but it is a reality
for large numbers of people in the world.
• Let’s first tackle the digital divide (which
after all these years, still exists), and then
let’s worry about equal access to content.

9. • The reason why network neutrality is an issue is due to
the design of the Internet. The Internet boasts three
interesting design qualities that separate this medium
from other telecommunications media.
• First, the Internet comprises a number of layers . In
other words, functional tasks are divided up and
assigned to different layers.
• Secondly, the Internet operates in an end-to-end
design where applications are implemented on the
Internet.
• Third, the design of Internet Protocol (IP) separates the
underlying networks from the services that reside on
layers above them. From its inception, IP was designed
to be an open standard (Cerf, 2009).

10. 'For every place/economy, there is an
place/economy
/economy,
an
appropriate word/debate/discussion'
• "When we deal with telecoms companies we are
so strict with privacy of users. It is a criminal
offence when any data of a user is given away
or used. But when it is OTT players there is no
oversight. The Europeans have done so much
work in this area, in data protection and privacy.
They've done massive work to protect consumer
data, but from a global perspective, there is no
single entity looking at it in more depth. Perhaps
down the road with WCIT we will discuss it."
[Mohamed Al Ghanem - WCIT 2012 Chairman]

11. #1 categorization of Internet
BB mature
economies
Internet
BB developing
economies
Anything Internet is
the internet has two
classified as content parts - a content
element and an
infrastructure
element
"A key problem in the USA is that anything Internet is classified as content, while
the rest of the world categorises the internet in two parts - a content element and
an infrastructure element. Without a proper separation between these two elements
it was impossible to reach consensus," [Paul Budde]

12. #2 revenues from BB access
BB mature
economies
Revenue
BB developing
economies
OTT get more
Goes to OTT players
revenues vs. Telco
(mostly global) vs. to
return the investment. the Telco operators
(mostly national /
domestic).
In either case, the
Telco revenue is partly
money will be
used for BB expansion.
contributed to the
country.
Telco-OTT and Domestic-OTT strategies may reduce the gap.

13. #3 impact on BB developments
BB mature
economies
"Internet is
free"
BB developing
economies
Increase utilisation of
the already built
infrastructure.
The more traffic, the
better utilisation of
the network.
Increase utilisation of
the already built
infrastructure.
At the same time, no
contribution for further
network expansion to
underserved areas.

14. Thanks.
• Terima kasih.