BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.
Issue link: https://bbcmag.epubxp.com/i/232134
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS that FTTH deployers provide 111 HD channels on average, compared with 63 for cable deployers. Customers are signing up for fber to the home as fast as services are marketed to them, and services are being marketed at a record rate – 2.8 million in the last six-month period. 45.8 percent in the United States for the latest six-month reporting period despite the fact that FTTH services were newly marketed to a record 2.8 million homes in the same period. In other words, customers are adopting FTTH almost as soon as it becomes available to them. Fiber's strength is also evident in the attitudes of home buyers, who said they would knock an average of 2 percent of the price of a $300,000 home if it did not have FTTH access. Home buyers who had had FTTH accounts in the past were even more adamant. VIDEO ADVANCES Because many broadband customers have been "cutting the cord" and switching to online video, cable providers lost an estimated 400,000 video customers in 2013 – not counting 300,000 lost by Time Warner Cable alone during a dustup with CBS. Providers of video over DSL fared even worse. FTTH customers continue to sign up for video services, although their momentum is slowing. More than 6.5 million North American FTTH customers now subscribe to video services. Te 665,000 rise year-over-year did not match 2012's strong 738,000 showing or the million-plus increases of the recent past. However, the industry sees any increase as a victory. Render notes that, on average, American households now have almost three HDTVs and DVRs, but many of these devices are connected only to the Internet and not to traditional pay-TV services. Pay TV is not going away, of course. However, cable networks receive serious pushback from customers to 34 their preferred ofering – large bundles of channels, from which any one household might only select a few for regular viewing. Only a third of the under-35 crowd gets all its video from traditional pay-TV services, and 20 percent get little or no video that way. All ages are experimenting with over-the-top video ordered program by program over Internet connections. More than 40 percent of all consumers surveyed by Render in June get at least some of their video programming over the top. Speed and reliability matter even for conventional TV services, as does choice of video content. Render notes OTHER ONLINE ACTIVITIES Broadband customers now spend more than half their waking hours at home online – about twice as much time as they spend watching traditional TV programming on a traditional TV. Consumers surveyed in June spent an average of 36 minutes a day watching online videos, 2.6 hours in personal communication via email or social networking and 1.6 hours a day working online. Uploading large fles, especially for video, is becoming more common. Growth in such activities since 2010 has been startling. In 2010, only 7 percent had participated in two-way videoconferencing. Tat's almost tripled, to 19 percent, thanks in large part to Skype video calls but also due to an increase in videoconferencing for employment, whether at home or at the ofce or factory. GROWTH OR DECLINE, HALF OVER HALF HOMES PASSED HOMES MARKETED HOMES CONNECTED VIDEO CONNECTED Mar-07 -5% -16% 38% 37% Sep-07 -19% -13% 42% 118% Mar-08 43% 54% 16% 33% Sep-08 -7% 10% 10% 4% Mar-09 -35% -59% -22% -2% Sep-09 52% 17% 29% 13% Mar-10 -50% 0% -38% -24% Sep-10 37% -9% 17% 10% Mar-11 -19% 0% 9% -63% Sep-11 -4% 20% -40% 45% Mar-12 -36% -58% 23% 12% Sep-12 143% 320% 100% 18% Mar-13 -29% -33% -34% -7% Sep-13 83% 100% 58% -21% Recovering from a stormy winter, the industry posted strong percentage gains in almost every category. The growth in video customers ran counter to drops among cable and DSL customers, but it has slowed during the last year. Source: RVA LLC | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013