TelcoTV: Vendors rethink home networking technologies

“In the past few years, people talked about fiber-to-the-home or curb, like Verizon is employing right now,” said Hans Tan, product director for IPTV, WiMax and FTTx at ZyXEL. “They had a very limited budget and wanted to expand their revenue from a triple play. For a service provider now, they will look towards others like ADSL2 bonded. They don’t want to upgrade IPTV for ADSL2 or just replace every fiber connection. They’ll keep on using what they have right now, but they can do it using two lines, instead of one line.”

ZyXEL is focusing on the benefits of synergy between access products, home connectivity products, and home gateways. The vendor makes gateways for all DSL varieties, including GPON. Through owning the entire suite of home network products and application devices on the same platform, ZyXEL also offers telcos the ability to remotely manage each home using the same software. Tan’s biggest concern today is the effect of the economic downturn as IPTV continues to progress slowly in the US. He believes service providers will migrate to IMS as well as look towards IPTV to find more revenue-generating opportunities.

“I think people will start to explore more and more the capabilities of media,” Tan said. “On the other side, service providers want to provide more add-on value to their customer. If you want to do something for your home, it’s a storage product using a digital media adapter to stream to your cell phone. The service provider can start to charge more for these types of services.”