Parks Associates Sr. Analyst Addresses Growth of TV Everywhere Offerings and Value-Added Services at TelcoTV 2010

Brett Sappington, Senior Research Analyst at Parks Associates, is moderating “New Revenue Options- Monetizing the Digital Home” on November 10 at TelcoTV 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The session includes insight on value-added service offerings with the greatest potential to build consumer satisfaction and provide incremental revenues for service providers. Other speakers include: Tom Chmielewski, VP, Worldwide Sales, uControl; Dan Moffat, CEO, GTA TeleGuaml; and, Rich Nesin, Executive Director, HomePNA.

TelcoTV is the only major North American event designed to help telecom service providers explore all their options while remaining focused on the bottom line. The conference sessions are packed with expert advice and commentary from industry experts and peers who are making video services work.

Worldwide broadband households to hit 530 million by year-end; residential gateways top 130 million households

Key Numbers

• Worldwide residential broadband subscriptions are expected to grow from 530 million at year-end 2010 to more than 730 million by year-end 2015.
• Worldwide households with home networks will grow from 50% of all broadband Internet households to nearly two-thirds by year-end 2015.
• Global households with residential gateways are expected to grow from 130 million at year-end 2010 to more than 300 million by year-end 2015.
• Potential connected home revenues for broadband service providers and managed video operators are expected to grow from $16 billion by year-end 2010 to more than $60 billion by year-end 2015.

Inside the Digital Living Forecast Workbook
As the Broadband World Forum kicks off in Paris, France, today, Dallas-based Parks Associates forecasts that worldwide households with broadband Internet service will reach 530 million by the end of 2010. With the strong growth of home broadband connections, service providers are taking a more active role in deploying residential gateways to centralize the delivery of access services and enable new value-added connected home services. The number of worldwide households with residential gateways is expected to exceed 130 million by the end of this year. By 2015, these numbers are expected to grow to exceed 730 million broadband households and 300 million households with residential gateways.

This data comes from Parks Associates newly-released report Digital Living Forecast Workbook, a set of worldwide forecasts in 16 categories including television services, home networks, smartphones, mobile TV, HDTVs, game consoles, and Blu-ray Disc players.

The New Broadband Internet Service Provider Mindset
The mindset under which broadband service providers develop and deploy services is evolving due to two important variables:

• Broadband as a lone service is becoming highly commoditized; as a consequence, “speeds-and-feeds”-based marketing is changing as consumers can get the same or similar services from other providers. In fact, Parks Associates’ research finds that one-half of U.S. broadband households are not aware of the broadband speed they are receiving! This finding indicates that provider promotions on speed alone won’t work. Successful marketing must focus on other factors, such as bundles that combine broadband services with other core access services, high reliability, customer support, and compelling add-on services.
• As competition increases, customer satisfaction and retention strategies become more important. The ability of service providers to offer unique value-added services to their customers is important to retaining customers. Later on, these value-added services will create new revenue streams from high percentages of their subscribers, but providers first must sow the seeds of higher customer satisfaction for their current subscribers.

With the widespread deployment of broadband Internet services and residential gateways comes the opportunity for service providers to strengthen customer satisfaction and potentially grow revenues via the delivery of connected home value-added services.

Moving the broadband service value proposition beyond mere “speeds-and-feeds” includes the provisioning of value-added services that can increase customer satisfaction and create new revenue opportunities. Additional service offerings will fall into one of several categories:

• Entertainment: Access to exclusive music, video, and game content; the multi-platform availability of this content, both in and outside of the home.
• Lifestyle: Additional e-mail features (larger storage), calendaring, photo and video storage and sharing, and online storage and backup for data and digital media.
• Premium Technical Support: Phone, chat, remote, and in-home troubleshooting and fixing services; CE device setup and configuration; managed Internet security and parental control; and additional warranties and damage protection.
• Home and Health Management: Web cameras monitored from Web-connected devices and TVs, energy management features, and health tracking services (vital signs and health monitoring devices).

Consistent with previous Parks Associates’ previous research, recent research shows consumers rating technical support and certain lifestyle value-added services as most highly valued additional services.

We anticipate that the service provider revenue opportunity in the connected home can potentially exceed $60 billion by 2015. This projection is built in the following core services:

• Video-on-demand;
• Health monitoring;
• Residential energy management;
• Premium technical support;
• Smart home applications; and
• Safety monitoring.

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.

To read more about the EU TV Markets: Progress of IPTV, VOD, DTT services, subscribe to Parks Associates' European Research Update Newsletter.

Click here to subscribe to other Parks Associates complimentary newsletters.

Research Workshop features Broadband Services, 3D TV, Video Services, Connected CE

Parks Associates is hosting the special one-day research workshop Monetizing the Digital Lifestyle on September 20 to address operator strategies, value-added services, and new technologies such as 3D TV, connected CE, and multiscreen solutions. This interactive workshop takes place at the Connected Home World Summit in London.

Kurt Scherf, Vice President & Principal Analyst and Pietro Macchiarella, Research Analyst will present insight, analysis, and forecasts of the digital living markets in the following sessions:

-- Enhancing Broadband Services: Connected Home and Customer Support
-- Providing Depth on 3D TV Opportunities
-- Operator-provided Video Services: Coming into Focus
-- Connected Consumer Electronics: Platforms, Online Content, and the Consumer

Kurt Scherf will also chair and present on "Examining recent and forecast deployments of connected home services by operators and service providers" on September 21 at 9:30 a.m. In addition to hosting the research workshop and speaking at the event, Parks Associates is a supporting partner of the 2010 Connected Home World Summit. The Connected Home World Summit, part of the IPTV World Series, brings together key players in the connected home value chain to evaluate the commercial potential of connected home services and to clearly understand the technical and financial challenges of supporting them.

Parks Associates to focus on opportunities in digital media & connected CE at CONNECTIONS™ Europe

Parks Associates announced the agenda for CONNECTIONS™ Europe: Monetizing Connectivity and User Experiences, which the international research firm will host on April 27, 2010, in Amsterdam.

CONNECTIONS™ Europe is the leading executive summit featuring European and international consumer research, top executives, and innovative companies in the digital living markets. The summit will examine business models and challenges related to digital media, including the potential of 3D video in the home, the role of value-added services in building ARPU, monetization of over-the-top content, and the challenge of pushing content to multiple connected CE, including smartphones and other mobile devices.

The preliminary agenda for CONNECTIONS™ Europe features the following sessions:
-- Bringing the Content
-- Extending the Video Experience to Multiple Screens
-- Controlling the Experience
-- Value-added Services & the Video Ecosystem
-- Mobile Video: The Cloud, the App Store & the Connected Home

CONNECTIONS™ Europe will feature Parks Associates’ expert consumer and industry research, with the company’s analysts presenting data from consumer research projects including All Eyes on Video, Consumer Decision Process, Residential Energy Management, and Digital Media Evolution.

Early sponsors for CONNECTIONS™ Europe, also members of Parks Associates’ Premier Program, include ActiveVideo Networks and PacketVideo. Visit www.parkspremier.com for more information on the Premier Program.

Visit www.connectionseurope.com for more information about CONNECTIONS™ Europe. The deadline for speaker submissions is March 1, 2010.

CONNECTIONS™ to focus on business strategies, new connectivity solutions in Digital Living Markets

Parks Associates announced the Call For Papers for the upcoming CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase. The 2010 conference will take place June 8-10 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

The main topic areas for the event are Entertainment Platforms & Value-Added Services, New Media and Digital Content, Consumer Electronics, and Home Systems & Controls.

Emerging technologies continue to change the digital living landscape. Mobile applications are increasing the role of service providers, who are adding home controls, energy management, and entertainment offerings to their platforms. Online video is radically transforming the roles of the TV and the game console, while Blu-ray and video kiosks are reshaping the distribution channel for physical media. At this point, we don’t know which business models will ultimately prevail.

CONNECTIONS™ will address the opportunities and challenges in connected CE, 3D TV, smart grid and energy management solutions, consumer and technical support, smartphones and mobile services, social media, and content management.

For fourteen years, CONNECTIONS™ has been the premier event for research and analysis of connected home technologies and digital living solutions. The executive conference features consumer research and presentations from international research firm Parks Associates and a comprehensive agenda with over 80 speakers. Past conferences featured keynotes from AT&T, Verizon, Sony, Intel, and Microsoft.

Submission Deadline is January 30, 2010.

Defining the Connected Home

The connected home is a term used frequently but often defined ambiguously. For Parks Associates, the connected home is comprised of the following elements:

• Access services - including broadband, television, landline communications, and mobile services
• Content and value-added services that complement the core access services
• Devices that connect to these access services and each other, creating a network that can share content and resources throughout the home
• Consumer electronics manufacturers, the PC industry, pay-television service providers, and broadband providers are driving the development of the connected home, for obvious reasons, as the interplay of these elements expands the businesses for all these players.

Learn more about how Parks Associates categorizes the major business strategies involved in the connected home. Read the September Parks Points today.