Cable operators are looking to home networking as another way to maximize revenue from the broadband pipeline built to their subscribers' homes, and a survey by Ucentric finds there is money to be made with the service.
Ucentric has conducted home-networking trials with several of the top North American cable systems, including Comcast, AT&T Broadband and Canadian operator Rogers Cable, as well as with retailer Sears and a DSL provider.
One key finding is that home networking ? linking together personal computers, televisions, audio systems, telephones and potentially other devices ? needs to be customized for each individual subscriber, says Paula Giancola, director of marketing for Ucentric, a Maynard, Mass.-based software company.
Many in the industry thought linking together computers would be the application that pushed adoption of home networking, but Ucentric has found otherwise.
?The driver here is entertainment and television ? it's all about the couch,? she says.
The single most popular home-networking service is multitelevision personal video recording, Ucentric found. Consumers are willing to pay $15 a month to have two sets on a single PVR and up to $5 for each additional set.
?Some 70% of customers said that multi-TV PVR was a ?must have? to purchase among the suite of services, and our retailer figures show 60% of current PVR users say they want that capability,? Giancola says.
Along with revenue, she notes, offering the service allows cable operators to go on the offensive against PVR retailers and DBS providers.
The second most popular home-networking service is multiscreen caller ID, which allows subscribers watching TV to see on-screen who's calling when the phone rings, the survey found.
Consumers were willing to pay from $2 to $4 a month to avoid having to answer a sales call, Giancola says.
Next is the digital jukebox, through which music can be transferred from the PC or elsewhere to ?the best speakers in the house,? she says. Subscribers and retail customers were willing to pay $3 to $5 a month to have their music portable, the survey found.
Giancola says there is already a lot of data on networking PCs within the home, and Ucentric's survey confirmed previous findings that consumers are willing to pay $10 a month to add a second computer to their high-speed-access service.
Ucentric will be moving from trials to what Giancola calls ?pilot deployments? with cable operators by the end of 2002, although she says the company is not yet ready to announce its partners.
Steve Craddock, Comcast's SVP-new-media development, says his company is not yet ready to put home-networking services out at any price points.
?We have visions of home services just a little bit more expansive than Ucentric's and would want to see it a little more developed before commenting on the numbers,? Craddock says. Some services that sound simple ? caller ID on a TV screen ? become more difficult when running the PVR, for example, and those issues must be resolved before settling on price points.
?But do we think it's a business? Yes,? says Craddock. ?Do we think we can provide value and actually change the economics of how this stuff gets paid for in the home? We think so.?
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