Advanced Television

Gateways boost operator revenue

May 25, 2012

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its new Residential Gateway Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey. The report delves into service providers’ strategies for deploying and pricing residential gateways, the applications driving their deployments, and their top picks for residential gateway vendors, services, technologies, and features.

“With residential gateway revenue dropping because of price declines and a saturated broadband subscriber base, operators are looking to new services to increase revenue per subscriber,” notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and video at Infonetics Research. “From our recent interviews with operators around the world, it is clear that they see their broadband access lines (be they DSL, cable, or FTTH) as a conduit for new revenue-generating services, far beyond today’s voice, data, and broadcast video services.”

Heynen adds: “The fastest growing new services that operators plan to offer over residential gateways are home automation, home security, and multiscreen video (wireless distribution of video to set-top boxes, PCs, tablets, and mobile phones in the home), but there are many others gaining popularity, including online gaming and video telephony. Residential gateways are a better fit than basic modems for these types of services because they can be remotely managed and provisioned, have an open application layer to add and customize new features, and offer higher throughput and greater security features. In essence, residential gateways are becoming the gatekeeper for new, high-margin, revenue-generating traffic for operators.”

Other survey highlights include:
* The percentage of operators offering IPTV services using a residential gateway increases from 88 per cent now to 100 per cent by 2013
* The number of operators offering WiFi hotspot access using a residential gateway grows to 82 per cent by 2013
* The most critical residential gateway features are those that help operators deliver video and ensure video quality, including IGMP, TR-069 management, and IPv6
* Service providers are reluctant to offer integrated ONTs and residential gateways
* In an open-ended question asking operators who they consider to be the top 3 residential gateway vendors, operators most often named Huawei, Pace, and ZTE

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