The Challenges of the Connected Home

The "connected home" is a fast moving, rapidly evolving area that would have been difficult to believe a few years ago. A massive range of devices can be found in the average home, iPods, laptops, IPTVs, game consoles all from different companies, all battling for bandwidth, all offering different content via different applications to various users.

It's little wonder then that as broadband usage increases in our homes, the challenges of connecting multiple devices grows.

A recent report from Informa has suggested that no single company can expect to "be at the heart" of the future connected home. Instead, there will be a variety of devices deployed in the consumer environment, involving a wide range of vendors. What's more, there will be a variety of stakeholders involved, from broadcasters, content providers, network providers, consumer electronics device manufacturers and so on. As the extent of available devices increases, so too will the spectrum of content and applications that are delivered to the connected home.

In this environment, with iPods vying with laptops vying with Xboxes, it will be vital to ensure equal access for all users. Prioritisation is critical to this. Let's imagine that Mum is employed from home and needs to set up a real-time video conference with a colleague in a different place. But, before she can begin her conference, the first child, home from school, decides to download a video. Meanwhile, the next child decides to go online and play a game with his mates.

The available bandwidth needs to be managed and apportioned on the basis of priority - Mum's needs are greater than her children, but the online game is more important than the video download. There will be a constant variation in needs, as various applications are used for different periods.

There may also be various service or content providers involved in each service, so how can the varying needs be satisfied? It's a complicated and increasingly common scenario and service providers need to have a real time solution to these competing demands.

The answer lies in the gateway. It's crucial that the gateway is able to recognise and respond to the different application needs, reducing some types of traffic or increasing the bandwidth or priority of others, keeping mum happy and allowing the kids to level frag their mates without interruption.

Effective bandwidth management helps to keep consumers satisfied but also appeals to service and content providers as it opens up the possibility of new types of business engagement. This kind of active traffic management or policy enforcement can be the basis of emerging two-sided business models. A new revenue opportunity is beginning to emerge in which the network or service provider can charge content provided different rates for ensuring different levels of priority or QoS.

The reality is that change is gathering pace and the connected home is already happening all around us. The critical element for managing conflicting demands is the gateway. Although there will be many stakeholders involved, gateways will be differentiated by their proficiency to handle different kinds of traffic and impose policies set by the service provider, which presents an opportunity for manufacturers to become the lynchpin of the connected home by equipping gateways with the software necessary to achieve this - and for service providers to monetise their policy enforcement capabilities. There may well be no individual company that dominates the connected home, but there is a key device that is likely to become its heart.





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