Digital Home: Services, networking technologies and challenges facing operators

Source: Microsoft

The growth of internet-enabled devices and a maturing of networking technologies indicate the digital home is entering a new phase. But while operators believe the home offers important new service and revenue opportunities, considerable challenges remain. Operators are thus proceeding cautiously. 

Here is a look at the status of the digital home in terms of:

• Services driving home networking
• Wireless and wireline home networking technologies
• Challenges

Services driving home networking

IPTV and video delivery are key services that place significant demands on the home network in terms of bandwidth and reach. Typically the residential gateway that links the home to the broadband network, and the set-top box where video is consumed are located apart. Connecting the two has been a challenge for telcos. In contrast, cable operators (MSOs) have always networked video around the home. The MSOs’ challenge is adding voice and linking home devices such as PCs.

Now the telcos are meeting the next challenge: distributing video between multiple set-tops and screens in the home.

Other revenue-generating home services interesting service providers include:

• A contract to support a subscriber’s home network
• E-health: remote monitoring a patient’s health
• Home security using video cameras
• Media content: enabling a user to grab home-stored content when on the move
• Smart meters and energy management

One development that operators cannot ignore is ‘over-the-top’ services. Users can get video from third parties directly over the internet. Such over-the-top services are a source of competition for operators and complicate home networking requirements in that users can buy and connect their own media players and internet-enabled TVs. Yet any connectivity issues and it is the operator that will get the service call.

However, over-the-top services are also an opportunity in that they can be integrated as part of the operator’s own offerings and delivered with quality of service (QoS).

Wireless and wireline home networking technologies

Operators face a daunting choice of networking technologies. Moreover, no one technology promises complete, reliable home coverage due to wireless signal fades or wiring that is not where it is needed.

As a result operators must use more than one networking technology.  Within wireline there are over half a dozen technology options available. And even for a particular wireline technology, power line for example, operators have multiple choices.

Wireless:

• Wi-Fi is the technology of choice with residential gateway vendors now supporting the IEEE 802.11n standard which extends the data rate to beyond 100 megabits-per-second (Mbps). An example is Orange’s Livebox2 home gateway, launched in June 2009.

• The second wireless option is femtocells, that is now part of the define features of the Home Gateway Initiative’s next-generation (Release 3) platform, planned for 2010.  Mass deployment of femtocells is still to happen and will only serve handsets and consumer devices that are 3G-enabled.

Wireline

• If new wiring of a home is possible, operators can use Ethernet Category-5 cabling, or plastic optical fibre (POF) which is flexible and thin.

• More commonly existing home wiring like coaxial cable, electrical wiring (powerline) or telephone wiring is used. Operators have adopted HomePNA which supports phone wiring; the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) that uses coaxial cabling; and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance’s HomePlug AV, a powerline technology that uses a home’s power wiring over which data is transmitted.

• Gigabit home networking (G.hn) is a new standard being developed by the International Telecommunication Union. Set to appear in products in 2010, the standard can work over three wireline media: phone, coax and powerline. AT&T, BT and NTT are backing G.hn though analysts question its likely impact overall.  Indeed one operator says the emerging standard could further fragment the market.

Challenges

• Building a home network is complex due to the many technologies and protocols involved.

• Users have an expectation that operators will solve their networking issues yet operators only own and are interested in their own home equipment: the gateway and set-top box.  Operators risk getting calls from frustrated users that have deployed a variety of consumer devices.  Such calls impact the operators’ bottom line.

• Effective tools and protocols for home networking monitoring and management is a must for the operators. The Broadband Forum’s TR-069 and the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) diagnostic and QoS software protocols continue to evolve but so far only a fraction of their potential is being used.

Operators understandably are proceeding with care as they cross the home's front door to ensure their offerings are simple and reliable. Otherwise any revenue-potential home networking promises as well as a long-term relationship with the subscriber will be lost.

To read more:

• A full article including interviews with operators BT and Orange; vendors Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive division, Ericsson and Netgear; chip vendors Gigle Semiconductor and Broadcom; the Home Gateway Initiative and analysts Parks Associates, TelecomView and ABI Research will appear in the January 2010 issue of Total Telecom.

• Can residential broadband services succeed without home network management? Analysys Mason’s Patrick Kelly.

• Comcast moves closer to creating a content-and-distribution behemoth The Economist