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Trouble at Home
Defining the interconnectivity of residential appliances and who
delivers the services to them
By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your
feedback
is important to us!)
Created: June 13, 2002
The
home (or place of residence) has always been a safe and profitable refuge for today’s
consumer
electronics industry. Successful products such as the television (TV),
video cassette recorder (VCR),
digital versatile disks (DVD),
and even the new personal video recorder (PVR)
have all been due to the success of the consumer electronics industry innovation and
marketing. Regardless of innovations or standards established through telecommunications
companies (e.g. Satellite or Cable Television), the consumer electronics industry has
generally led the way with new products and evolving de facto standards for consumer
residences (homes and multi-dwelling units).
Evolution of Consumer Electronics in the Home
Prior
to recent years, consumer residences have largely housed isolated single purpose
electronic gadgetry.
Home
theater systems,
whole
house intercoms, home security systems, etc. have circumnavigated many
consumer residences with
twisted
pair copper wire,
coaxial
wire,
special
muti-purpose wire, and even some fiber optic cables. However, these systems
have rarely reached beyond the home or combined to form a multimedia network of devices
within the home. The few exceptions have generally been proprietary, narrow band (dialup),
or proof of concept products. None of these products have gotten serious attention from
the consumer whose buying preferences dictate where the consumer electronics industry
innovates.
As
many residential consumers have subscribed to broadband, an important transformation has
come to the once isolated home. Broadband has established an Internet Protocol (IP)
beachhead within the home, enabling a multitude of long standing consumer electronics to
finally reach beyond the home. Broadband has brought with it the monster of all networking
standards in IP thus creating a rich plug-n-play environment that is off the shelf
compatible with thousands of hardware and software products. Thanks to the entry of
cable
modems and
digital
subscriber line modems (xDSL), broadband subscribers can begin to run
relatively advanced home networks. In fact, the simple addition of something called a
residential
gateway (also known as a Cable/DSL router) can enable multiple home
appliances to access a single IP beachhead established by the
cable
modem or
DSL
modem. These residential gateways can connect to a home’s existing
twisted
pair copper wires or provide access through popular
wireless
networking standard such as 802.11b.
The
residential gateway has the potential to become the epicenter of the home. Residential
gateway vendors such as
Belkin,
Linksys,
and
NetGear
continue to develop increasingly simple to operate devices that can easily connect to
various broadband connections and facilitate Internet connectivity for multiple home
appliances. However, the potential for the residential consumer to take control of the
myriad of services possible with a broadband Internet connection has created quite a stir
among broadband service providers (BSP). BSPs have invested heavily in building the last
mile Internet connection that facilitates these services and they would like to be
involved in the delivery of value added services to their subscribers rather than allow
companies on the Internet to provide them over their Internet link. Multi-Dwelling Unit
(MDU) owners likely share the same concern as BSPs having wired their complexes for
broadband connectivity.
Some
initial Internet based services offered directly to broadband Internet subscribers have
now begun to appear. These services offer their subscribers
movies
($6-10/month),
secondary
line phone service ($15-25/month),
home
security ($15/month),
online
gaming ($10/month), etc. When combined, these value added services easily
command a multiple of the amount many subscribers pay for their broadband Internet
connection and BSPs are searching for a way to get involved. All these value added service
companies are Internet based, paying for their own Internet connection to facilitate their
business, and many are also working with slim margins so they are reluctant to pony up
access fees to BSPs. BSPs as well as MDU owners are left to build their own competing
service, block these services and force their subscribers to purchase rights to access
external value added services, or do nothing which means simply remaining a provider of a
last mile broadband connectivity.
Where is the Consumer Electronics Industry when you need them?
In
absence of the consumer electronics industry stepping forward to create products that help
all BSPs and MDU owners solve this problem, the cable industry has broken off from the
group to build its own competing value added service infrastructure. The cable BSPs have
formulated a draft specification for how their devices in the home will operate and how
the BSP could manage value added services above and beyond providing basic Internet
connectivity. These services managed by the cable BSP will differ from their competing
Internet counterparts by utilizing advanced bandwidth Quality of Service (QoS) features
that will permit them to not be impacted by network bottlenecks. They will also leverage
extensive security measures such as Key Distribution Centers (KDC) to ensure proper
authorization and to limit theft of service. These security measures may also form the
basis of future managing of digital rights capabilities.
This
specification marks an attempt to define how fairly generic hardware and software
components within the consumer electronics domain must operate on cable systems. If
successful, consumer electronics would need to certify their components with this
specification before these components could leverage the advanced services being offered
by the cable BSPs. However, the question many people are asking is “How will the
consumer electronics industry respond?” Clearly, consumer electronics companies
oversee the majority of products consumers use within the home and if this space suddenly
becomes hindered or clouded by certain industry sectors defining their own products it may
well restrict consumer electronics companies from doing what they do best – innovate.
If successful, it would also open the door for other industries to require additional
(perhaps unique) certifications for their products. The consumer electronics industry
might well be looking at not one but multiple certifications for the same device such as a
residential
gateway – one for cable, telephone, satellite, wireless, etc. as well
as multiple certification fees from each of these industries. From a consumer perspective,
it could look even more confusing. You could have products that will only work well with
one type of broadband service (e.g. DSL). The cable industry will make a conscious attempt
to allow traditional capabilities of such devices as residential gateways to go unchanged
while also supporting their specific capabilities – a magnanimous gesture considering
the resulting complexities left for the consumer electronics industry and average consumer
to unravel.
Today,
consumer electronics for the home already satisfies the requirements of MDU owners as well
as all the various broadband data service offerings by cable, telephone, satellite,
wireless, etc. It has done this through creating a de facto standard that functionally
meets the needs of consumers as well as the operational requirements of MDU owners and BSP
offerings. If all BSPs and MDU owners shared a common interest to deliver their own value
added services (albeit competitively) this consensus would represent a much larger market
for the consumer electronics industry, a much less complicated product, and result in a
much easier decision for the consumer.
Consumers
will ultimately dictate who wins this battle for home appliances as well as who provides
services to these home appliances. What remains to be seen however is how and where the
consumer electronics industry will be involved. Will consumer electronics lead this area
or will they uniquely address the requirements that each business sector establishes on
their own?
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