Internet Applications Market Research
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Links to web pages that provide information about the Internet application business sector.

By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your feedback is important to us!)

Meta Research:

Residential gateways ready to grow (July 21, 2003) By year-end, 20 million people will have broadband access; 11 million will have a home network, according to Parks. This means increasing numbers of non-technical users are calling customer support, pressuring providers to find ways to increase ease of configuration and use. CableLab's CableHome and the DSL Forum's DSLHome both are working to commoditize gateways to decrease the cost to service providers and free them to partner with a variety of gateway manufacturers. Creating gateway standards also opens the market to newer players, such as DSL modem makers Efficient Networks and Westell (which own 53% and 35% of the DSL equipment market, respectively), and small office/home office hardware vendors Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco; Netgear, SMC Networks and others.

Residential Gateways Bring Range of Options into Home (June 10, 2003) overview...

Revenue Potential For New Applications And Premium Content Found In New Study Of The Market For High Speed Data Services (May 2003) One of the most interesting findings in the survey is consumers' interest in applications such as home networking, firewall and security, and parental controls. Seven out of ten (70%) of all current HSD subscribers express interest in at least one of the applications tested, and one in four (23%) express willingness to pay upwards of $10 more than the standard price for HSD for such applications. Potential is also strong among the next wave of High Speed adopters with 82% expressing interest in add-on applications and 32% willing to pay more than the current $45 average monthly cost for HSD service. Many, not most, current and potential HSD customers will also pay more to access premium content such as streaming and downloadable music and video, news, sports, and content for children. Two out of five (45%) current HSD subscribers are interested in at least one premium content offerings covered in the survey, and one in four (27%) are willing to pay extra for access to a bundle of premium content. Among the next wave of HSD subscribers, 65% express interest in premium content, with 13% willing to pay. Interest in premium content is particularly high among young, 18-34 year old High Speed adopters, and among households with children.

Home Gateway White Paper (?) Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) predicts that the home gateway equipment annual revenues would scale to USD 7.1$ billion by the year 2006. Broadband Connection Sharing, File / Print / Device Sharing, VPN Connectivity to Work Place from Home, VPN Connectivity to Home/Office from external world, Print Server, Web Based Configuration, Voice Over Broadband Support, Firewall Protection, URL Filter (Parental Filter), Wireless LAN Connectivity, Service Provider Manageability, One Box Solution (Home Networking + Broadband), Video Conferencing / Video Phone, Over Broadband, In-Home Audio / Video Distribution & Streaming (VoD), Home Automation and Control. [Must Read]

Data center server based solutions in the Internet applications space:

Well founded within the enterprise space and well integrated into key technology (such as radius).  Not as well accepted or deployed within the ISP space and lacks some key OSS integration.

Residential gateway solutions in the Internet applications space:

Missing from these devices is a tight integration with network provider OSS so that revenue can be made from additional features, also may be defeated through disconnection (re-routing wires), moves to make this device operator (MSO or ILEC) controlled is untested in the market place (question marks concern whether consumers will permit operators access to their home networks -- security and identity concerns).

Packet shaper solutions in the Internet applications space:

Client PC loaded Internet applications space:

Stop gap solution for parental control lies within the PC space. However, none of these methods are standarized. Some of these companies actually offer multiple products of different names to attract users seeking some particular functionality. Pushing this capability further up into the network is perhaps a better (less expensive) way to perform these functions.

Related search search words:

If you could not find what you were looking for here are some useful internet search words on the subject of Internet applications:

Employee Monitoring
Internet Filtering
Internet Usage
Network Security Appliances

Other items to consider:

How will home devices be provisioned (activated)? Will they be provisioned by ISPs or last mile providers (ala something like CableHome or PacketCable 2.x), or will this task fall upon the consumers. If "in home" provisioning will fall upon consumers, where will the brains of this capability reside (residential gateway). Moving intelligence to the edge of the network seems to be a trend of network operators, however, provisioning-wise, this has yet to take place.

Readers who use this information for investment purposes do so at their own risk! Opinions expressed are just that and not based on insider information or information otherwise obtained illegally.

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