European Research Update: EU Developments in Digital Living

Parks Associates attended multiple conferences in the latter half of 2010, and we were encouraged by the industry developments throughout the continent. Here is a summary of some of our recent observations, which culminated with the recent CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit, which Parks Associates hosted on November 15-16, 2010. Visit www.connectionseurope.com for more information on this and future Europe events.

European Service Providers Embracing the Connected Home

The operators in attendance at the Connected Home World Summit in London were from many different European markets - from Greenland, Estonia, Italy, Germany, France, and Russia to countries in between. We came away with the following takeaways from the panels and keynotes:

There are very different takes on the economics of deploying the "God Box"/über-box, which would bring in the functionality of the residential gateway (modem, routing, remote manageability, etc.) along with multiple set-top boxes (tuners, transcoding, server capability, etc.). For reasons related to cost, lifecyle differences in CPE, and the risk of one point of failure, many operators are taking a conservative approach in deploying fully integrated customer premise equipment hardware. At the same time, Intel (which was represented at the event by Brendan Traw) has had early success with some service providers, including Telecom Italia and Liberty Global, in delivering a high-powered gateway that takes on much of the functionality of the über-box.

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Impact of the New Health Law on the Digital Health Industry

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Affordable Care Act") passed in the spring of 2010 and took effect near the end of September. Although there will be attempts to repeal some portions of the law, Parks Associates believes most of the provisions will stay unaffected and have a positive impact on the long-term prospects of the digital health industry. Of course, given the complexity of our health system, the interconnected relationships among various stakeholders, and the ripple effect of policy changes, these positive influences could come earlier or later than expected, depending on the start dates of certain provisions, whether they are fully funded, and their process of implementation.

First of all, the influx of newly insured people will aggravate the shortage of primary care and specialist doctors and drive the adoption of alternative care models like home health monitoring and online consultation.

Provisions such as prohibiting health insurers from rejecting patients due to preexisting conditions, keeping adult children on parents' insurance longer (till they turn 26), and mandating insurance coverage for most citizens after 2014 will drive more people to use primary care services. At the same time, the shortage of primary care doctors, and especially the shortage of specialists in rural areas, is not going to abate. The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the nation may face a gap up to 150,000 physicians as med school enrollment in the family doctor practice continues to fall and more doctors hit the retirement age in the next 15 years. Technology solutions such as home health monitoring and online visits are reasonable alternatives to alleviate the doctor shortage problem.

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EU TV Markets: Progress of IPTV, VOD, DTT services

The Western European market for television service features a diverse set of offerings and regulations across nations. Terrestrial services are a common choice among consumers in all nations, but IPTV is making inroads in some areas, with France in particular serving as a worldwide leader in IPTV growth. The following is a brief overview of several key countries, with information and data from Parks Associates' recent report Television Services: Global Outlook (Second Edition).

The upcoming executive summit CONNECTIONS Europe™, November 15-16 in Amsterdam, will feature multiple sessions focused on advanced TV services and devices, including "Consumers and Connected Consumer Electronics," "Bringing the Content: Content Delivery and Control for Connected TVs," "Extending the Video Experience to Multiple Screens," and "Value-added Services & the Video Ecosystem." Register Today at www.connectionseurope.com.

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Integrators and Home Networking

Each year, Parks Associates surveys installing dealers throughout the U.S. through its ongoing Channel and Consumer Monitor project, and as we launch our 2010 survey this week, we are taking a look at some of the more prominent trends over the past few years and how they are impacting the dealer market and related industries.

One significant trend has been the rising awareness of home networking, specifically no-new-wires networking technologies as valuable solutions for dealers' businesses. For example, based on our last survey, more than one-half of integrators are familiar with Wi-Fi (based on the 802.11n standard), and 19% are familiar with at least one type of powerline connectivity media (e.g., HomePlug, Powerline HD, HD-PLC).

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