Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Bringing it all back home: the next broadband frontier is the home, thanks to the rise of the high-speed Internet and the growing popularity of Wi-Fi.
At the ITU TELECOM ASIA event in Busan in September, one of the big attractions at the stands of Korean firms like SK Telecom, KT/KTF and LG Electronics was the home network demos. Everything from the TV and DVR to the washing machine, gas timer and A/C unit was online, and at the center of it all was an IP gateway directing the action. On the widescreen TV was an icon menu for each appliance, all accessible by one remote-control device. And yes, even the fabled "Internet refrigerator" was online. It came with its own screen, from which the same icon menu can be accessed, making the fridge another control point for the home network. It also allowed users to access online information like traffic cams, weather info and video news broadcasts. Users could even leave video messages for other members of the family.
The fact that two of the companies demonstrating home networks were service providers was no coincidence. Each home network can also be accessed via PCs and mobile phones, with the same icon menu seen on the TV or fridge screen at home. This not only allows users to check up on their homes (via Web cams and status reports for each appliance), but also allows the home net to send alerts out to the user when something goes out of whack.
That's one vision of the home network scenario, and there are plenty of others. And while it all sounds future-techy, in reality the technology is already here.
Which is why vendors and service providers are moving on the home networking front. Home networking is increasingly being seen by operators like SKT, KT, Chungwha and others as a logical step up the value chain for their broadband customers. A number of broadband operators in the US and Canada have been taking that step for over a year, and Asia--the biggest broadband market--is closing in.
In June this year, the Korea Home Network Forum, Japan's Echonet (Energy Conservation & Homecare Network) Consortium and China's IGRS (Intelligent Grouping & Resource Sharing) agreed to share their advancements in home networking technology and promote the developed standards internationally, KT Corp is currently trialing a home networking service in a project with Samsung Corp's Housing Development Group in Seoul, where KT is providing 20o households with home network services, including interactive digital broadcasting, home automation, home security, health-care services such as remote video medical consultation, and infotainment services such as VOD, Internet broadcasting and network gaming. Intel has been busy working on the "digital borne," partnering with companies like Microsoft for digital media apps and working with service providers like Chunghwa Telecom, which plans to launch digital home solutions for broadband customers by the end of this year.
Even regulators are working to promote digital homes. Korea's Ministry of Information and Communications, for example, has set a target of connecting 10 million households through home networking systems by 2007, and has allocated 882.8 billion won ($770.2 million) toward development and standardization of home networking technology.
Consequently, home networking is becoming the next focal point for big-money hype. Certainly analysts are impressed. Instat/MDR says broadband sharing and a growing interest in entertainment networking will drive the home-networking equipment market from $8.3 billion this year to $17.1 billion by 2008. And while most of the action is in North America now (accounting for 46% of home network gear sales worldwide), Asia is expected to become the regional leader in home networking by 2008, accounting for 36% of the market as North America drops to 34%. Gartner is even more upbeat, putting the world home networking market at $106.2 billion in 2010. IDC expects the worldwide installed base of home networks to grow from 37 million in 2003 to nearly 111 million in 2008.
The catch--you knew there was one--is that while the technology is here, the standards aren't. Not all of them, anyway. Integration and interoperability remain big snarls in assembling the home network and bridging several network layers, from the network itself to the devices, the interfaces and, in particular, the content (three words: digital rights management). And while some have recently been sorted and others will be in the near future, the other catch (and you knew there would be another one) lies in getting users to comprehend all these new apps and--more importantly --pay for them.
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