IHS has conducted in-depth interviews with service providers across the globe who use residential gateways to provide broadband services and found that only 31 per cent of respondents plan on virtualising their residential gateways by 2017.

“Despite the obvious benefits of virtualising residential gateways in the home-namely shortening of provisioning time and elimination of truck rolls-our survey respondents aren’t completely convinced it’s something they will implement in the next couple of years. Nearly 70 per cent said they weren’t planning on doing so or didn’t know if they would be virtualising their gateways by 2017,” said Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and pay TV at IHS.

“Unlike the data centre, where virtualisation has been in place for some time, it will take longer for service providers to virtualise their residential access networks and CPE,” Heynen said.

Report highlights include:
– Residential gateways (RGs) combine a DSL, FTTH, cable or 3G/LTE modem with routing and switching capabilities and a WiFi access point, and are increasingly used by service providers to deliver voice, data and video services.
– 75 per cent of respondents currently offer Gigabit Ethernet connections on residential gateways, growing to 88 per cent in 2016.
– Among the wireless interfaces IHS asked about, 802.11ac shows the most growth, with 69 per cent of respondents saying they plan to include it in their residential gateways by next year.
– Consistent with last year’s findings, Arris topped the list of perceived top residential gateway vendors, followed once again by Pace.

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