HomePNA Blog

More Telcos, More (and faster) IPTV Deployments

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

If you have been following this blog (and I hope you do) you may recall that I’ve mentioned that the telcos' interest IPTV has been increasing dramatically. I saw it at FTTH, IP Possibilities, and especially at the HomePNA Summit which attracted more telcos than equipment manufacturers. Yesterday, HomePNA board member Motorola  announced  a win at Farmers Telephone Cooperative. Being HomePNA (aka HPNA) centric, we immediately noticed that it includes their VIP1200 IP Set-top boxes which, we are happy to say, features HomePNA for home networking over coax (and, also needless to say, is HomePNA certified).

Ignoring the hype that I get paid to write, the technology really is maturing rapidly. CED Magazine ran an article last month about Bell Aliant that stated they “can comfortably get a couple of TV installs done in a day, and we’ve created enough buffer zone that our technicians can pick up another piece of work, whether it’s a TV trouble call or another high-speed install. We’ve gone from struggling to get two pieces of work done a day to comfortably getting three pieces of work done a day.” A far call from the six or seven hour installs we heard about a couple years ago. The HomePNA technology hasn’t changed so you can bet that this is mostly a result of experience, better installation procedures, diagnostic equipment and increased testing.

Home Network Management – an Activity Enabled by a Platform

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Six or seven years ago who would have thought that service providers would not only consider home networks to be part of their network but would want to manage them? Well they sure do now. According to an article in Billing and OSS World magazine last week, the home network enables service providers to partake in a host of other applications that span from utilities to health care. And lest we forget that pesky need to reduce service costs and especially minimize the number of service calls. This isn’t exactly news but neither is the requirement for remote monitoring and management – essential to providing a stable home network for these applications.

So today, instead of evangelists (like me) spinning the story, we have technologists and product managers at leading service providers like Verizon (who use MOCA for home networking) and TELUS (who use HomePNA) describing their plans for the home network.

By coincidence, I was discussing the very same topic last week with a respected engineer at another equally well known leading telco that uses HomePNA for its’ triple play IPTV service. He told me that, from their operations center, he had diagnosed a home networking problem in his boss’s house down to a loose coax connector on one of the set-top boxes. Turns out the boss had previously detached the connector while he was working on his entertainment center. Connector tightened; problem solved. The fix was verified by a quick to the operations center and, most importantly, no service call was required.

Well one reason (as my friend the engineer will tell you) that this particular service provider choose HomePNA was the attention to integrated remote diagnostics and management capabilities (and we at HomePNA believe that HomePNA 3.1 has best in class capabilities). And one reason for this blog is to talk about how this stuff is real and a lot of it is integrated into the residential gateways, set-top boxes and other equipment being installed being in customers’ homes today.

CenturyLink joins Telcos AT&T, Telefonica, TELUS and Bell Aliant at HomePNA Summit September 30 to October 1

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Timing is everything. Here we are, hard at work organizing the HomePNA Summit, and analyst firm Strategy Analytics helps us out with a new report forecasting that the US IPTV market will grow from 5M subscribers in 2009 to around 15.5M by 2013. That’s moving from under 5% of the total television households to 13% in 2013. As the report says “The entrance of the Telcos into the television game has created new and significant competition for the traditional pay television platforms”. Good news for HomePNA which has become the standard home networking technology for North American TelcoTV.

It’s good timing too. CenturyLink has joined other leading telcos at the HomePNA Summit September 30 to October 1 and will be speaking about their experiences deploying HomePNA technology for IPTV. CenturyLink, one of the leading communication companies in the United States, was formed earlier this year by the merger of CenturyTel and EMBARQ. It has operations in 33 states, around 7.3M access lines, and over 2.1M broadband customers.

The HomePNA Summit, which is especially drawing service providers to it’s audience in addition to equipment manufacturers and system integrators will be held September 30 to October 1, 2009 in Houston, TX co-located with the FTTH conference and expo. Come hear how leading communications companies such as telcos AT&T, Telefonica, TELUS, Bell Aliant, and CenturyLink; satellite providers Tata Sky and YES; and cable leader Digicable use HomePNA home networking to enable new IP based services.

Telus reports results. To Speak at HomePNA Summit

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Hope you saw the announcement of the first HomePNA Technology Summit last week. The Summit features a lot of speakers from service providers such as TELUS's Ann Slevinsky, Manager of TELUS TV Development. Very timely since TELUS is serious about offering TV services especially to offset the declines from, you guessed it, their traditional voice service.

In their 2Q results announcement last Friday, TELUS reported over 100,000 TELUS TV (IPTV) customers --  which was reported by TeleGeography to be a 125% jump in subscribers. In the words of Darren Entwistle, TELUS president and CEO, “We continue to improve our competitive offering for our customers and enjoyed continued strong subscriptions to TELUS TV this quarter.” Together with the launch of their new satellite service across B.C. and Alberta last July, TELUS claims they can now offer bundled entertainment services to more than 90% of households.

It should be interesting to hear what Ann has to say about their experience deploying HomePNA in those TV homes.

AT&T 2Q U-verse Results Just In

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

AT&T's second-quarter results - just in - reported “continued strong growth in AT&T U-verse TV subscribers with a net increase of 248,000 to reach 1.6 million in service.”  The release also reports that more than 75% of the U-verse TV subscribers choose a triple (with broadband and voice) or quad-play (with broadband, voice and mobile) option.

Since a HomePNA network is installed in each of those houses it's not only great for AT&T but for HomePNA members.  It also provides continuing validation for the case we have been making about the value of bundled services. 

And while we are on the subject of bundled residential services, Kurt Scherf from Parks Associates has released a new free whitepaper, IPTV and the Digital Home,  that discusses the success of TelcoTV. Parks forecasts the number of Telco/IPTV subscribers to grow from around two million households in 2005 to over 35 million by the end of 2009 and addresses the question of why consumers might choose TelcoTV over more traditional video-centric offerings such as cable or satellite.

I like Parks' whitepapers. They focus on residential technologies and combine quantitative and qualitative data from all sides: consumers, manufacturers and service providers. “What has spurred this growth? The lesson from the significant increase in telco/IPTV subscribers over the past few years is that consumers choose to switch service providers for a variety of reasons and not necessarily to get that one “killer application”. When asked why they plan to switch providers for television services (among other services), consumers show a variety of churn triggers. They are about as likely to indicate that they’ve grown disenchanted with their current provider, that they’re expecting a significant up-front pricing deal, or that they expect better customer service as they are to indicate a desire for new features not available from their current provider.”

The accompanying chart shows money as a major but certainly not only motivator. “There are a variety of service features that, when implemented, could entice consumers to pick one provider over another. IPTV/telco service providers have a head start in offering some of these elements, which go beyond traditional TV”.  Customer service is on the chart and "Telcos find themselves in the unique position of having a comparatively better reputation than their competitors for their customer support practices".  HomePNA's remote management and diagnostic capabilities certainly play to that strength and promise enhanced capabilities for service providers that utilize them. The list, which includes other soon gotta-haves, goes on...

Verizon FiOS Tweets The Home Network

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Verizon is certainly making points with FIOS TV. Even though they basically provide cable TV over fiber and not IPTV, Verizon does install a, shall we say, non-HomePNA existing wire home network (OK, so it’s MOCA) when they deploy FIOS TV. Inside the home TV programs are carried over the coax as though they were provided by a cable company – which is to say without using IP. Verizon does use IP and the home network for VoD; and now for other stuff too.

As we blogged back in March, Verizon has officially announced some major new additions to its FiOS TV' service - the Widget Bazaar applications store, which includes a Facebook widget, a Twitter widget, and Internet Video on TV. Verizon also plans to have an open development platform so the hordes of programmers churning out Apple iPhone widgets can also write interactive FIOS applications made available through a widget bazaar (similar to the Apple App store - although I understand the offerings will be more controlled). And don't expect them to be clones of the applications you run on your PC or smart phone.

So add these to your over-the–top TV pleasures courtesy of IP and a home network: Twitter, Facebook, ESPN Fantasy Football and.... You'll find them in your FIOS TV Interactive Media Guide. So Tweet your most profound thoughts about the deep reality show you are watching. And Verizon says they will be releasing its Software Development Kit (SDK) soon so stay tuned for dozens more applications.

HomePNA Shipments Hit 10M and Why

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

When you see an article by Rami Verbin, Chief Technical Officer at CopperGate Communications, it’s well worth the read.

In the article, entitled “HomePNA: No New Wires”, Rami discusses the convergence of TV and IP enabled broadband-delivered digital entertainment and communication inside the home. “Consumers are spending more time watching TV and Internet video … The question is how do consumers easily route entertainment throughout their entire house?”

If you’ve been following this blog you can probably guess the answer is “by using existing phone or coax wiring”. The article explores the distinction between home networks and home entertainment networks, outlines trade-offs of various approaches, and then goes into the technical details of HomePNA explaining why the technology is especially well suited to this application and the integration of HomePNA into consumer devices.

We love validation and some appeared today in an email from InStat announcing a new report “North American Households with Home Networking over Coax & Phone Wiring to Double in Two Years”. According to InStat, “Nearly 2/3 of consumer respondents from In-Stat’s survey expressed an interest in watching Internet Video on their TV” and “two segregated home networks have been evolving– a service provider-centric network, and a PC-centric network. Each is leveraging different business models and technologies.”

And while we are on the subject of rapid service-provider-deployed-entertainment-home-network-market-growth (try saying that three times fast), after months of hint-dropping, Coppergate recently announced that it has shipped over 10 Million HomePNA chipsets. The compelling benefit of HomePNA technology and existing wire home networking was well summarized by Kevin Hastings, Chief Architect, Digital Broadcast Services at Bell Aliant when he said “CopperGate’s HomePNA technology helped Bell Aliant cut install times by more than 30 percent.” “Shorter install times helped us reduce our customer wait time for installation from a month down to the next business day. This has given us a competitive edge in this market.”

Global IPTV Growth Reported and U-verse adds features

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Check out the latest press release on the Broadband Forum’s website announcing the results of a new market study. Predictably the report, which was prepared for the Forum by Point Topic, shows great growth in broadband worldwide in the midst of a severe economic downturn. What thrilled (but didn’t surprise) us was the even greater growth of IPTV with North America number two behind Western Europe in total IPTV deployments but growing twice as fast – is it that compelling IPTV value proposition?

And don’t forget, IPTV is young and the technology is evolving daily. Industry groups like the Broadband Forum continue to develop and refine guidelines which leverage home networking technology to allow service providers to offer IPTV. We like the Broadband Forum and their standards. Any technology that simplifies, standardizes, or enhances a service provider’s ability to provide broadband and IPTV services is good for our members.

In related news (note the smooth segue), our favorite son AT&T announced enhancements to its U-verse services. Chief among those is a new DVR feature “the company believes is unique: the ability to schedule and manage recordings from any U-verse receiver in a multi-room DVR installation (instead of from the DVR receiver room only)”. The new feature is a software upgrade that will be enabled while you sleep. In the words of Jeff Weber, vice president of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, “with AT&T U-verse, you’re getting DVR capabilities you can’t find from any cable providers … we’re giving you an advanced entertainment experience, and this is still only the beginning.”

Nearly 10 million HomePNA Chipsets Shipped

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

I hope you didn't miss the recent article "HomePNA chipsets enable smart home entertainment networking” by Eran Gureshnik, product line manager of HomePNA products at our favorite-son home networking chip supplier CopperGate Communications.

The article discusses how HomePNA 3.1 has improved business opportunities for service providers and entertainment options for end users. “These days, the answer to “What’s new on TV?” is far more than a list of sitcoms, dramas, and reality shows. Interactive bidirectional TV is elevating the viewing experience with offerings like AT&T’s U-verse, an IPTV service featuring video on demand, Voice over IP (VoIP), Total Home DVR, and more. A recent report from ABI Research states that demand for IPTV service will increase by an estimated 32 percent annually over the next six years to nearly 79 million global subscribers by the end of 2014.[1]”. Further, “Today, four out of the five largest IPTV-deploying telcos in North America have selected HomePNA and are installing it at a rate of 120,000 homes per month. CopperGate Communications has shipped nearly 10 million HomePNA chipsets”.

It also discusses the technical challenges involved in delivering triple-play broadband services and the way HomePNA 3.1, an ITU standard and the first multi-wire home networking standard, has paved the way for significant progress in IPTV with chips that reliably stream data, voice, and video over existing coax and phone wires. Included are features such as Limited Automatic Repeat reQuest (LARQ), a technique first used by the HomePNA SIG in the HomePNA 2 standard to compensate for high impulse noise which is known to cause frequent frame damage.

Old Dogs Really Hate New Tricks!

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

We’re apparently a bit stubborn when it comes to giving up our old television sets or at least getting them digital-ready by June 22, the digital-transition date. Apparently 3.5 million U.S. households still are classified as “completely unready” for the transition, according to Nielsen’s National People Meter research. These stubborn traditional television lovers either hold out for the sake of some endurance trick or pure procrastination – either way June 22 will come round and what will they do when the “snow” starts to fall? Scream and bang on ancient TV set. Of course, in our world where our loyal following has already embraced digital television long before the government set forth the “new rule,” we’ll all happily watch our digital TV, eat a few kernels of popcorn, and ruefully laugh at our stubborn neighbors, as the old set crashes through their windows. “Stupid TV!” Oh yeah…