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Residential Systems

A/V Content Will Drive Home Networking

The E-Home 2001 study conducted by Parks Associates has found that audio/video content will drive home networking growth, as a significant number of U.S. Internet households are interested in emerging home networking products/services related to home entertainment.

Consumers' inclinations for flexible entertainment solutions should provide a solid boost for the home networking market, specifically technologies that enable the storage and distribution of digital content, according to the Parks study.

In the survey of 711 U.S. households with Internet connectivity, the market research and consulting firm found significant interest in "digital download" services, which would include movies and music files.  Consumers also expressed parallel interest in complementary connectivity solutions that could share these files among PCs and consumer electronics products.

"We believe that digital content in the form of video and high-quality audio files will drive certain home networking applications, especially if that content can be aggregated on a platform and sent to multiple devices within the home," said Parks Associates' vice president of research Kurt Scherf.  "This year we expected to see robust home networking solutions emerge in end-user products that will have commercial success in the market."

Parks Associates estimates that by the end of 2005, U.S. households will have more than 80 million connection points for entertainment-specific applications.

From the article "A/V Content Will Drive Home Networking."

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