HomePNA Blog

IPTV Grows Worldwide

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA Marketing and PR

Market analysts MRG released their Global IPTV Market Leaders Report — March 2009 that describes some interesting trends around the world. Among the most notable, the report cites global growth and most specifically in China where strong gains have been for Access, video on demand, set-top boxes, middleware and content protection. “This kind of a regional category-take-over is unprecedented,” states Jose Alvear, IPTV Analyst at MRG. “Larger regional vendors (and service providers) are starting to ‘pull out all the stops’ on their regional strategies, on the belief that the economic contraction is offering unique opportunities to move aggressively into un-served markets.” We’re not surprised by the report’s revelation – in fact, we expected to see worldwide growth particularly in the Asian countries and South America where our own business interests continue to build.

"Here take it All! But Please Don't Take my Cable Service"

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA Marketing and PR

In the obnoxious theme of "we told you so," our fellow Americans still seem to be doing exactly what we said they would be doing during the recession – going home for their entertainment. A survey from Amplitude Research said 70 percent of 600 respondents said they plan to keep current cable and satellite television service this year. On the flipside, only two of the 600 said they plan to drop their multichannel video service to cut household expenses; however, 15 percent said they intended to downgrade to a lower-priced video subscription service.

Also interesting, the study found that a "substantial number" said they are turning to the Web to watch video and about 32 percent said they "regularly watch video from Web sites such as Hulu, YouTube and iTunes."

We think we can safely say that with the vast majority continuing to keep their home entertainment service despite what's going on with their pocketbooks, the home entertainment industry will not be taking any real hits in 2009 and will grow at a steady, even pace. We also think the economic environment may be accelerating the move away from the traditional cable model and toward an on-demand model that relies more and more on over-the-top Web content delivered to your TV over IPTV and a home network.

“Social-Media-Ize”

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director of HomePNA Marketing and PR

Now we could be going out on a limb with this one … but the growth of IPTV and the rapid explosion of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In) has us wondering how it will all tie together? And it mostly certainly will. You can’t have to two popular and somehow connected media that don’t converge together. So, we’re going to be futurists here and suggest that in the next five to 10 years as IPTV proliferates and social media continues to explode, a merge of the two can’t be far behind. We’ve already mentioned our expectation that digital broadcast television and the Internet will somehow find themselves coupled like a yin-yang marriage where the opposites have learned to not only coexist but do so with an energetic harmony that somehow makes sense. Now toss in the obsession that has become social media and you have the makings for a new generation of ultra social couch spuds ready to launch into cyberspace and meet all of the people they may have only said “hi” to once in an elevator. We are curiously on the verge of something truly interesting that will impact society and culture in some unexpected ways. And HomePNA intends to be right in the middle of it as the potato soup du jour providing the necessary standard to distribute all of this wonderful home entertainment to every room in the house. So, here’s to your “social” spud lives!

Quadruple-Play Ready

A new study released from Compete Inc., a Web analytics company, suggests consumers are ready for quadruple play services (voice, data, video and IPTV) and details telecom companies positioned best to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. It also reported that consumers are driven first by bundled pricing and convenience (no surprise there) and are less concerned about which services are in the bundle -- however they are more interested in bundling broadband access with phone and TV over cellular service somewhat offsetting the advantage of telcos with cellular offerings.  Marketing the offerings is critical. 

We don't find the information particularly revelatory as much as it confirms our observations of the rapidly growing market place where consumers seem to be eating up AT&T's U-Verse service. As we reported in several blogs, U-Verse subscriptions picked up at a dramatic pace in the last two quarters of 2008. While this building momentum may be moderated somewhat (in their last quarter results, AT&T announced that it will slow U-verse deployments slightly and plan to pass 30M homes in 2010 rather than 2009), deployments don't appear to be eclipsed by recent economic woes so we really don't expect to see any abysmal numbers reported in the near future. In fact, we are encouraging service providers to join HomePNA as soon as possible. By becoming a member you will be taking the first steps to dodge the economic bullet. The home networking market in general seems to be a good place to be "playing" if you want to set your sights on higher ground and survive the economic storm.

 

 

Digital TV Transition Delayed

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA Marketing and PR

In what seemed like an obvious turn of events, the switch from analog to digital television has been delayed to June 12. No surprise! Rumblings began a month ago that a delay was likely given that some two million viewers had been put on the "list" to receive their coupon to purchase the converter box. You can't shut off the supply without ensuring all your constituents have a solution – or you can and cause uproar in proportion to a major riot. Americans love their TV! Or "don't take my TV away from me!" If the coupons had gone out in the appropriate timeframe the transition probably would have taken place as projected. Now the government has a few more months to get caught up and send out those coupons. Here in HomePNA land where member AT&T offers a digital solution in the form of U-verse, we feel confident all of those subscribers would have calmly watched the riots – on TV!

IPTV Making Serious "Noise" in the TV Market

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director HomePNA marketing and PR

All you cable couch potatoes who think 500 channels and a stagnant TV watching experience is spud heaven, we have news for you. Now you can add sour cream, bacon bits and onions to your potato, as bi-directional IPTV challenges traditional uni-directional television in a potato bakeoff. Recent statistics indicated that while traditional cable and pay-TV platforms still have a stronghold, according to ABI Research, IPTV will grow by an estimated 32 percent annually over the next six years to nearly 79 million subscribers globally by 2014. That's a big glob of sour cream and some cheese on the side too for you potato lovers. Certainly recent statistics regarding AT&T's U-verse indicate that the full-on spud winner could end up being IPTV as traditional television slowly phases out. And if the laws of any new technology apply, we think the potato recipe for the future is definitely IPTV – which makes for very happy HomePNA members whose services and products are included on that recipe list!

Just how mainstream is IPTV?

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA Marketing and PR

Once closet technology familiar among only geeks, gurus and techies IPTV has hit main street to become more commonly known among the "folks."  What evidence do we have to support our announcement? Just look at a recently launched video contest sponsored by Actiontec. Actiontec invited users to create a short video to show why they love their broadband connection. Videos can depict among others thing IPTV or connecting your home entertainment center to the Internet. Wait! Did they use the word IPTV undefined and business as usual in a consumer invitation? Yes, I believe they did. How exciting is that? And what does this mean for HomePNA technology that enables distribution of triple-play service including IPTV throughout the home? It means consumers are becoming aware of it and will not only ask for IPTV to be included in their service provider bundled packages but DEMAND it be included. Service providers not ahead of the demand will be forced to forge ahead to meet that demand by developing and delivering IPTV capabilities as a part of their standard offerings. We here at HomePNA welcome and encourage service providers in need of assistance to join our growing organizations and get a leg up on meeting the forthcoming demand.

"Wolf! Wolf"

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA marketing and PR

The headlines are overweight with serial proclamations that the "sky is falling" and quick! Run for cover. So I guess television viewers took heed and ran for cover all the way into the safety of their homes and straight for a comfortable couch and a great enhanced IPTV experience. They are apparently using their HD televisions to project rays of bright, exceptionally clear light to ward off stray pieces of falling sky. All the while enjoying their high-definition channels and multi-room DVR, which a few Chicken Little analysts suggested they would not do to save a dollar or two during these tough economic times. Turns out Chicken Little is really The Boy Who Cried Wolf!

News from competitor Verizon suggests Chicken Little might want to pack his bags and head for Toon Town. Verizon conducted a survey that found 57 percent of 1,026 adults will save a few dollars by staying home and watching not just more TV but enhanced TV. Imagine that! Escapist behavior when the world looks not so bright. And hey! While you're watching TV, why not beef it up a little? Makes sense to us. Certainly, recent announcements out of HomePNA member AT&T about their U-Verse subscriber increases support the survey results. So, the sky is not falling unless you're watching a show on the Disaster Channel on your fabulous IPTV!

One Million U-Verse Viewers – No Problem!

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, director, HomePNA Marketing and Public Relations

Right on the heels of our recent announcement that AT&T expects to hit the 1 million mark for U-verse subscribers by year's end, recent news reports about Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform support our projections. Microsoft announced that 2 million customers now use Mediaroom IPTV platform globally, with AT&T driving much of the growth.

 According to Telephony Online, "What we are seeing is a real shift from companies coming out and building and testing IPTV to real deployment and adoption that is driving momentum for the services," said Paula Reinman, director of outbound marketing for Microsoft Mediaroom. "The ramp is really good news and the interesting part of it is why that is happening and the indicators are that growth is coming not just from new customers and deployments but from customers being able to leverage new capabilities in the platform."

 Are we surprised by the increasing interest in IPTV? No, we've been watching the momentum grow over the last year; slowly building into the expected wave of adoption. AT&T certainly seems to believe it's not just about to happen but is happening.  AT&T also launched U-verse Total Home Digital Video Recorders services using Mediaroom DVR Anywhere technology and continues to differentiate its offering on features. For both AT&T and Microsoft we expect deployments to continue to grow strongly. For all you prospective HomePNA members out there, I hope you're paying attention to the obvious synergy between IPTV home networking and IPTV middleware technologies.

The More Bandwidth the Merrier

By Michelle Gamble-Risley, Director, HomePNA Marketing

More HomePNAmembers companies are integrating components and devising ways to increase throughput speeds to make the IP based home entertainment experience even better. Take for example, Actiontec Electronics’ announcement of its new line of triple-play VDSL2/ADSL2+ Universal DSL Wireless Gateways, which include support for HomePNA and MOCA in addition to Ethernet and WiFi, and are designed to fuel the next generation of high-speed data, HDTV, and Voice over IP services. The advanced gateway offers throughput speeds up to 100 Mbps upstream and downstream over existing copper access lines -- enabling carriers to deploy ultra-broadband service via any access architecture including CO-based DSLAM, remote DSLAM, or FTTx and any access protocol (ATM or PTM).  With guaranteed QoS and a data rate of 320 megabits per second, HomePNA 3 can provide over 200 megabits per second of user throughput, enough speed to really make use of the high performance DSL interface.

What does this mean to the average consumer—more bandwidth to accommodate the rise of social media and IPTV where video and audio files suck up bandwidth faster than you can download. New products like the Universal DSL Wireless Gateway increase speeds and capabilities enabling the user to have the capability for an uninterrupted, video-rich entertainment experiences without objectionable glitches. So as the proliferation of social media continues to rise and IPTV becomes a common household entertainment experience, the end user can expect it will all happen without their knowledge or need to know. Now isn't that cool? We certainly think so.