Home Networking Strategies for Service Providers:
The Rise (again) of the RG

Providers should welcome this change, although it does potentially stress their current support infrastructure. For one, providers have to contend with the commoditization of bandwidth. One-half of U.S. broadband subscribers don’t know the speed of their home connection. In other words, you can’t sell subscribers on speed alone – you have to offer compelling value with that connection to the home.

As providers seek to win new subscribers and boost ARPU, converged services will become their dominant strategy. Operators are investing heavily to provide more and faster broadband access to consumers, with networking the cornerstone to the strategy for converged services.

Panelists on Service Provider Home Networking Strategies: RGs and Services, a session in the Support & Management track at CONNECTIONS™ 2009, noted that this new service emphasis has reinvigorated interest in the RG (residential gateway) concept.

The RG is an attractive solution for a number of reasons. It offers cost improvement and increased processing power over other CE options. It can serve as a single point in the home to focus control, and it is always on. Service providers need more control over the home network if they are to deliver converged services and manage in-home distribution of content and communications. The RG helps them build and deploy better networking services – and gives them a window into the network, which providers can use to diagnose problems on the network and with specific devices.

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The RG also offers expansion options. It can connect to multiple devices, including TVs and mobile phones, in addition to PCs, so as the home acquires new devices, the provider already has a device in place to accommodate this expansion.

Consumers today have multiple TV sets in the home, which in the set-top box (STB) paradigm would require multiple instances of the STB in order to extend service to all TVs. The debate of RG versus STB is essentially one of whether or not to integrate “intelligence” into the STB, making it more RG-like, while not making the full investment in a full-scale RG deployment.

This hybridization of the STB is quite common now, especially since there has been no clear consensus, at least from service providers, on which platform they will be using for the foreseeable future.

One factor in favor of wider RG adoption is the growing adoption of connected TV sets. These devices, provided they become more prevalent, could offer providers a platform that can substitute for the basic STB functions, while providers focus the reception and distribution functions for the video content in the RG. The RG also makes it easier to manage DRM and content security.

Given its expansion capabilities, the RG naturally inspires speculation as to what will be a killer VAS app in the near future. Panelists had a number of suggestions for future services:

• A centralized backup solution – in the home and a backup on the Internet – and home monitoring through devices such as Webcams

• Home automation and smart energy – the energy grid is getting more complex related to demand and supply

• Services that expand access to and control of video services

• Healthcare services

Thank you to the panelists on this CONNECTIONS™ session for their valuable insight:

Duane Carvalho, Sales Director,  North America, Jungo

Jaime Fink, Vice President of Technology and Strategy, 2Wire

Kazuhiro Kitagawa, Vice-Chairman, PUCC

Robert Malnati, Director, Business Development, Broadband Solutions Group, Home and Networks Mobility, Motorola, Inc.

Frank Ploumen, Director, Home Applications, Alcatel-Lucent

CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase

The next CONNECTIONS™ takes place June 8-10, 2010, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Visit www.connectionsus.com for more info.

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