Digital home still facing barriers

Despite the enormous gains in both simplification and cost reduction over the last several years, 80% of consumers say cost is the No. 1 barrier to adopting digital home solutions, according to a recent survey from Accenture.

The good news for telcos getting into the video and home networking markets, though, is that the survey of 2600 consumers in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Japan also found that 70% would prefer a single provider or aggregator for the content, services and digital devices that comprise the digital home.

Al Delattre, a partner in Accenture’s Communications & High Tech practice, said that most companies in the digital home space provide only a portion of the content or services and that partnerships among hardware, content and service companies are important.

In the survey, Accenture presented four different types of digital home formats: home entertainment, home healthcare, home management and virtual office offerings. Home entertainment was the most popular, with 42% of respondents expressing strong interest, followed by family care at 37%, and 28% each for home management and virtual office.

Asked about the benefits that would most encourage them to buy a converged digital home solution, 56% said “save money,” while 46% said “make life easier” and 41% responded “improve home energy efficiency.” Interestingly, a mere 40% said they were be attracted by “saving time” and 34% by “making my life at home more fun.” In the U.S., however, a greater percentage was attracted to the fun element, while consumers in Japan placed more importance on having access to multiple providers of content.

Among the other barriers besides cost, 40% of consumers said they were concerned over data privacy and security, while 35% said it was complexity of installation, 33% said fear of equipment becoming outdated quickly and 32% cited the need to replace current home equipment.