iControl-uControl merger aims at service provider home security control

Telecom service providers have dabbled in the automated home security market for years. Former Baby Bell Ameritech likely was the first telco to pursue the opportunity back in the 1990s, and more recently, SureWest Communications has offered a broadband-based home monitoring service. Still, home security, monitoring and management never really has taken off as a must-have service provider offering. That’s about to change, according to two companies in the field who last week announced plans to merge to help them better pursue the opportunity.

Those companies, the similarly-named iControl Networks and uControl, announced a definitive merger agreement that will give the resulting combined entity, iControl, more resources and better financial stability to address a growing market, said uControl CEO Jim Johnson, who will be co-CEO of the merged company along with current iControl CEO Paul Dawes.

“Both companies shared a vision for home security evolving to a service for the connected home,” Johnson said. “Home security is an entry point, but 20 percent of the homes in North America currently pay a monthly fee for it, and we want to grow that market.”

An immediate growth opportunity exists through broadband service providers such as telcos and cable TV companies that would like to manage more aspects of the consumer home beyond current video and data networking applications. Though iControl hasn’t previously announced deals with such customers, uControl already has forged a few deals with service providers—North Carolina’s Comporium Communications, for example. But, iControl’s Dawes said several more telco and cable firms are poised to announced home security and management endeavors in 2011.

“We have been talking to the telecom companies for several years about this opportunity,” Dawes said. “They are not asking us right now ‘Why should we do this?’ They were at that stage three or four years ago. The business opportunity is clearly there now.”

During the last few years, home security has been undergoing its own transition from traditional telephony connectivity to IP, and Dawes pointed out that home security platforms are becoming increasingly integrated with newer telecom and broadband-specific technologies. For example, both companies support connectivity technologies like ZigBee and Z-Wave, as well as mobile iPhone and Android applications, and are working toward more integration with residential gateway technologies, Dawes said.
It’s not difficult to envision a consumer using an iPad-type of device at home to manage and navigate a variety of video and data services, and home security features being part of the same management menu, all offered through a broadband provider. “The telcos and the cable companies are the ones that have technologies deployed on a mass scale to make this happen,” Johnson said.

For now, the two companies will continue to support their own ongoing commercial trials and deployments, but will work together on future technology developments. The merged company will be based of iControl’s current Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, with a division in Austin, Tex., where uControl is based.