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BROADBAND COMMUNITIES
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www.broadbandcommunities.com
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
2016 Forecast:
Sunny, With a Chance of Gigabits
Industry experts expect broadband demand to keep rising. How service providers will
meet that demand is somewhat less clear.
By Masha Zager / Broadband Communities
W
hat's in store for broadband this
year? "Bandwidth usage will keep
going up," says Scott Helms, chief
technology ofcer of ZCorum, echoing a
common theme.
Te drivers of bandwidth demand include
some familiar applications and some that are
not so familiar. On the familiar side, over-the-
top video streaming will continue to grow –
sometimes with multiple streams going to the
same household at the same time – and video
formats will become ever more bandwidth
intensive with the addition of 4K and virtual
reality.
OTT's coexistence with pay TV may
become more peaceful this year as operators
introduce "skinny bundles" to keep customers
from dropping pay TV altogether. "Te number
of subscribers with skinny TV bundles will
increase by a factor of 100," says Geof Burke,
senior director of corporate marketing for Calix.
Many consumers will rely on pay TV for basic
channels and supplement them with the content
of their choice via online subscriptions.
Paul Lee and Duncan Stewart, authors of
the Deloitte Global report Technology, Media
& Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions,
agree that OTT will continue to erode pay
TV revenues by enabling cord cutters, cord
nevers (millennials who never subscribed to
pay TV) and cord shavers ("skinny bundle"
buyers and others) to avoid paying for some
or all traditional TV services. However, the
report concludes, "TV's decline is more likely
to happen at a slow, steady and predictable rate.
An apocalypse is not around the corner."
Other familiar applications driving
bandwidth demand include photo sharing –
Deloitte Global predicts that in 2016, 2.5
trillion photos will be shared or stored online,
a 15 percent increase over the prior year – and
video calling. Lee and Stewart point out that
video calling is becoming more bandwidth
intensive as video quality improves and as
conference calling becomes simpler.
IT'S ALL CONNECTED
An example of a not-so-familiar bandwidth
driver is what Stephane Bourque, president
and CEO of Incognito Software Systems,
calls the "deluge of wearables," a category that
encompasses such devices as smart watches,
ftness trackers, smart glasses, smart clothing,
Learn more about the latest
broadband trends at the 2016
BroadBand Communities summit ,
April 5–7 in Austin.
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