The Evolution Toward Friction-Free Media Part 2: The Home Network

By Michael Wolf | August 24th, 2007 (0) Comments

I’ve been following home networking for close to 10 years now and have witnessed some of very interesting market battles and developments. Home RF vs. Wi-Fi (we know who won that), the discovery layer battles (UPnP, Jini, HAVi, and on and on), the emergence of DLNA, and the re-setting of the vision of the residential gateway from a service delivery god-box to a commoditized modem/router combo that is fast becoming the de facto CPE in some parts of the world. During all that time I’ve been a user, eagerly trying new devices that allow me to connect my PCs, video game machines, my telephone and more recently my TV and set top box. In this time, I can honestly say that things have gotten MUCH better in terms of useability, as the home networking gear vendors have come miles in terms of UI, in terms of plug and play, and allowing me and others to leverage a variety of physical layer connections to fit the unique needs of my own use-cases as well as the physical characteristics of my home.

That being said, we still have miles to go. For all of the talk of higher speeds and longer range and simple one-click set up, the home network today is still very much fraught with complexity that turns off the average user and, at times, the most expert user. Far from being a network engineer, I’ve learned enough through my own tinkering and management (as well as my family members complaining of how something won’t print or the Internet is no longer “working”) to know that the network is a highly complex thing, relying on a delicately tuned mix of different devices with various pieces of software that all has to tweaked on a weekly if not daily basis to make sure it works right. For the most part things work well with the basic stuff, where I can usually go on a business trip and know that, for the most part, my wife’s laptop PC will be able to print and get Internet connections, and if something does break down I know what I have to coach a somewhat annoyed and non-technical person through over the phone to get things working again.

But in a sense, that’s the point. I still get those calls. I am sure most of designated home network “managers” do. And think of how different this is from our cable or satellite connections, from our POTS phone service. We rarely, if ever, get calls telling us that we can’t get the TV to work, that the home phone isn’t working. These things, for the most part just work. And more than that, if they don’t work, there is an army of trucks out there, of call centers somewhere in Iowa or India, where a friendly voice is ready to help by actually looking into the network and rebooting the device, or if that doesn’t work, coaching one of us into getting the thing to work.

And things are going to get more complicated before they get better as we expand the definition of the home network to entertainment. We at ABI see the greatest growth opportunities in Wi-Fi and other forms of connectivity in consumer electronics, and over time we expect that Wi-Fi and Ethernet ports will be as common as USB and AV ports on those shiny black boxes we buy. But there is still grave reservations among top-tier consumer electronics companies around whether home network will ever be reliable or robust enough, especially when it comes to video.

My own experience shows why they are reluctant. I was happily surprised to see Dish had recently enabled the Ethernet port of the 622 HD PVR for EPG downloading and other broadband interactivity. I went to plug my box into the Powerline/Ethernet 4 port switch behind my TV and couldn’t get it to connect on the network. I found I had to power cycle the switch, as for some reason the HomePlug network stopped working. Wa-la, it worked, at least until two days later when the thing needed to be powercycled again.

Who needs this?

In the spirit of my recent white paper, I believe the friction will remain for some time in the home network, often time being enough to ground traffic to a halt and creating enough distaste among some consumers that they stay in the traditional entertainment delivery frameworks they know and love today for years longer. But, over time, applications like online gaming, video downloading, Slinging your video, and multi-room audio will help drive consumer interest in connected entertainment to the point they can no longer resist the siren call of increased choice, a la carte buying, and freedom of movement and time around their digital media. At the same time, increased implementation of DLNA, UPnP, will help in creating better useability. Walled garden connected entertainment solutions from Apple or Microsoft or Sony will create a level of comfort for those who want to connect in new ways to entertain themselves but want it to work more seamlessly than a cobbled together solutoin. Over time, all will create a stutter-stop-move-forward of a reluctant mass who want to be entertained in new ways but don’t want to power cycle their HomePlug adapters.

If you want to read more about the market for connected entertainment and the various friction points along the way, check out the new white paper (free!).

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Related:
The Evolution Toward Friction-Free Media, Part 1

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