The restless growth of digital contents, everywhere connectivity, cloud services, and the proliferation of multiple devices, have raised the user expectation on content’s consumption: users expect to purchase and consume contents everywhere, watch them on any device, and having them synchronize them across all screens.
The satisfaction of these expectations makes incredible complex the management of digital media; just to give an idea, in traditional video distribution the average number of video formats for a single movie is 150. In this new obliquus world, where all possible scenarios (location, device type, video quality, subscriptions, etc.) growth exponentially, this number rises to more than 8,000.
This complexity made the market shift from the monetization and management of the content’s possession to the content’s entitlements (just the right to access content). To “consume” a content, the user doesn’t need any more to own it, he just need the right to watch it. Any time a user wants its contents, the system checks user’s and its device’s “right” (if he is entitled) to access the contents and provide it in streaming or in download mode on the selected device. The user will not buy anymore contents rather he buys the right to “consume” them wherever, whenever and on any device. He doesn’t need any more to download the content on its device. He can watch his preferred TV show in HD on its Smart TV when he is at home, on SD on its tablet when is under wifi, or a low quality format on its phone when he is traveling.
Users are not the only beneficiaries of this new scenario; also the other actors – Content & Service providers (OTT) and Communication providers) will get great benefits:
- For Content’s owners, managing “entitlements“ rather than specific formats have two benefits:
- simplify the management of the contents. An entitlement groups all possible digital formats for a specific content, reducing the number of objects to manage
- allows the distribution of a contents independently by Communication providers (Cable operators can distribute contents at home, on mobile or on WiFi in mobility). An example is Xfinity, who distributes its content on Comcast cable network, but also on other Operator networks.
- For Communication providers, they can use entitlements to enhance their services. They can bundle their services with OTT services to create new and more attractive packages. For example, Rogers in Canada is bundling its video services with other video providers to create richer video packages.
Traditionally, Entitlement platforms, created in the era of cable televisions to manage only TV services entitlements, are relative simple solutions. Applications access the entitlement platform asking if a specific subscriber can “consume” or not the requested contents. Entitlement platform checks in its database the subscriber entitlement status and provide back the authorization.
The adoption of the entitlement model by telecommunication operators to support ubiquos content entitlement are opening new business scenario and relationships, but at the same time it required new entitlement systems. The next generation of entitlement systems must be capable to:
- provide entitlement to a wide variety of applications, not only cable services and not only owned by the Operator. F.e. Telco operators can use entitlement to allowing roamer to access to their internet and wifi services.
- provide entitlement to their parties services, such OTT services.
- federate and/or consolidate subscriber data spread across the whole company. Telco subscribers are not unique defined in one system: their profiles can be stored in different Telco systems depending on what services they have.
- “mash-up” subscriber data in several virtual profile, as not all applications need the same subscriber profile information
- authorize not-telco subscribers, to sell contents and services also to not-telco users
- dynamically and in real time manage rules and policies to detect and authorize unmanaged device (tablets, smartphones, PCs, SmartTV, etc)
- manage real time authorization rules based on multiple parameters such as device type, subscription profile, location, n. of active device, roaming status, etc. F.e. the entitlement of unmanaged devices can imply real time controls such as:
- authentication on the device requesting the services,
- tracking and enforcing of the maximum number of devices allowed.
- Network status and location information
- Provide a rich set of analytical information on how subscribers (in all their “identities”) consume the services and recommendations on new promotions and offer to propose to the subscribers
The main features of next generation entitlement solutions are shown in the table below.
An example of architecture of a next generation entitlement platform is shown in the picture below.
