As smartphone penetration grows in Latin America, this region is experiencing the same negative effects of over-the-top (OTT) services that led operators in Europe, North America, and Asia to launch RCS. Indeed, it’s becoming increasingly clear that RCS, given its universal reach and telco-grade quality of service, is the best choice for operators to address the OTT threat, maintain subscriber loyalty, and preserve messaging revenues.

I often write about how OTTs can suffer from quality of service issues that operator-provided, standards-based services do not. I ran across an article last week that illustrates this point quite well. Path, a messaging app similar to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, recently sent out an SMS to everyone in a group of users' phonebooks—from ex-boyfriends to business associates—indicating that the sender had photos available for them on Path. “Not the kind of thing you would want sent to your buddy's wife on a Friday night,” the article aptly notes.

Written by Rafael A. Junquera, Director of editorial at TeleSeman.com 

The debate over how mobile operators can offset Over-the-Top (OTT) providers is ongoing as these players are capturing smartphone users, and operators are debating a solution to the dilemma through their events and forums. 

The Interop team is on the road next week, traveling to New Orleans for the CCA Global Expo. This show promises to be the best yet, with an interesting lineup of speakers and a record number of attendees. Interop is pleased to be a Pinnacle sponsor of this show. 

With Over-The-Top (OTT) applications like WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger posing a significant threat co operators' legacy messaging services, the need for mobile network operators to fight back is essential. But what is the best strategy?