Comcast's XFINITY Security is Available in Houston

The word from Light Reading comes that Comcast has made its XFINITY™ Home Security service available to the Houston market. This is another example of mobile and broadband service providers expanding their value-added services offerings into home, health, safety, energy, and security monitoring.

What is the demand for home and health management solutions from broadband providers. In Customer Support in the Digital Home, we found 15% of consumers in U.S. broadband households extremely interested in such a service. There are two main draws to these types of services: 1) the service cost can be bundled into one monthly bill, and hardware may be subsidized (as is the case with residential gateways and set-top boxes today); and 2) these emerging monitoring services can leverage smartphones and other IP-connected devices to provide users with more proactive monitoring capabilities. Heck, we've even heard consumers discuss the value of home monitoring for keeping an eye on the pets!