Most people would expect mobile carriers to be happy to hear that users sent over 19 billion messages last year. They would be if they were using their SMS networks. Instead, users are increasingly moving to “over-the-top” (OTT) services like WhatsApp.
Movius Interactive believes carriers will have to address this problem if they want to remain competitive.
Users sent more messages over OTT services than they did SMS messages, leading to an estimated loss of $54 billion in revenue by 2016, according to a study by Ovum.
“To become relevant In the OTT revolution, carriers must be more agile in application development, deployment, and innovate by offering personalized solutions that focus on user needs and also delivering open, real-time, voice and messaging services on their core networks,” Jose Romero, vice president of Strategy and Marketing for Movius said.
These carriers will also have to compete with OTT services like Skype by offering better features than they can get from third parties.
Movius has developed an application that could provide value to customers called myIdentities. The appl lets users maintain different virtual lines on their devices, which can be useful in the BYOD revolution as customers use their phones for both work and personal calls. With the application at hand, users can have only one device handling all of their connections while keeping their personal and professional lives separate from each other.
“Most people carry more than one phone to manage family, business, social, dating, etc… Movius myIdentities is a network based solution that allows customers to have multiple TDM phone lines, separate mobile workspaces, and separate billing on the same device with only one SIM card and without the need of a specialized dual-SIM device. These services help drive revenue growth for the carrier while adding extra services for the end-user," Romero added.
Edited by
Jamie Epstein 
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