Effects of instant messaging applications on telco operators and user habits

Telecommunication sector is continuing its growth and evolution at a very fast pace, and in the present day OTT (Over the Top) services which are recently emerged have captured an important share of the market. Many telco operators (telecom service providers- TSPs) are facing a challenge in order to fulfill increasing customer demands day by day. Smart devices owned by customers consume the bandwidth served by the service providers, in a large scale, therefore service providers make investments with high costs in order to develop network capabilities, yet network quality is a distinctive feature of telecom service providers. It seems that, the arise of OTTs caused a negative impact on revenue systems of telecom service providers on product and price. Impacts of aforementioned services could be considered by regulatory authorities and these situations increase debates over network neutrality. In addition, issues like geological origin (abovementioned services may be located abroad, generally), processing of personal data and user privacy could cause some difficulties. Within the scope of this thesis, after making literature and exploring the international developments, the impacts of OTT services (IM applications in particular) on telecommunication sector is examined and various suggestions are brought forward.