Broadband Communities

OCT 2012

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.

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C LOUD S TOR AGE Store and Access Content From Anywhere Consumers want to access their data from any device while keeping it safe and private. This represents a new opportunity for service providers. By Pirkka Palomäki ■ F-Secure A doption and usage of mobile devices around the world have altered the way companies approach and build products. People now carry phones and tablets nearly everywhere they go – sometimes using them at the same time as other devices – and they use nearly ev- ery feature integrated into these devices. Summarizing what Gartner analyst Shalini Verma recently pointed out, nearly all mobile devices are now ca- pable of creating and storing content, as they are integrated with high-quality lenses and large storage capacities. As a result, consumers are gradually shifting from the traditional practice of storing content on local devices to adopting personal cloud services. Tey want their content safely stored and available to access from any device, anywhere, any- time. As this trend continues to grow, telecom and cable companies will need to adopt premium offerings such as data sync and data storage services to dif- ferentiate themselves from competitors, retain existing customers and attract ad- ditional audiences. GETTING IN SYNC WITH USERS Whether by carrying around battery- operated portable stereos or by keeping photos of loved ones in their wallets, consumers have always demanded ways to access their content whenever they want, and that is even more true today. Te advent of private storage services helped consumers recognize that storing files in the cloud is simple, and as a re- sult, companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google recognized consumers were on the brink of a computing revolution. It's easy to see how Netflix became the dominant player in streaming ser- vices, even with its struggle to license additional content due to resistance from major studios. In fact, Netflix ex- panded to nearly every device on nearly every platform, enhancing the ease of watching video from anywhere. HBO and Comcast took similar actions, of- fering access to their respective content in more places with HBO Go and the Xfinity TV App. In defiance of the ad- age "Content is king," this illustrates that truly innovative services with the most useful tools can compete for bil- lions of customers. According to a recent Gartner re- port, "Te desire to share content and to access it on multiple devices will mo- tivate consumers to start storing a third of their digital content in the cloud by 2016." Gartner estimates that only 7 percent of consumer content was stored in the cloud in 2011 but expects that number to reach 36 percent in 2016. In a recent global survey of broad- band subscribers, F-Secure asked 6,400 broadband subscribers from 14 coun- tries, "How useful would it be to have all your content (photos, videos, music, documents, emails, and so forth) acces- About the Author Pirkka Palomäki is chief strategy officer of F-Secure, which provides Internet secu- rity, antivirus, firewall and backup solutions for home and corporate customers. You can reach him at namarketing@f-secure.com 80 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | OCTOBER 2012 sible on all your devices, wherever you are?" Sixty-nine percent responded that it would be "very useful" or "somewhat useful." Te survey also showed that more people trust their broadband providers (61 percent) than trust global compa- nies (51 percent) such as Dropbox and Google to store and safeguard their private or sensitive content. However, when we asked respondents which cloud storage, synchronization or backup solu- tions they currently use, 58 percent an- swered "none." Tis uncovers a large op- portunity for a telecom or cable operator to engage customers and serve a demand that is not yet fulfilled by a third-party provider. By offering unique, cloud-based, content-centric services to customers, operators can create distinctive offerings as well as differentiate and reach new audiences. Additionally, building a true multicontent, multidevice offering rein- forces a brand's relevance in the custom- ers' everyday lives. Furthermore, giving customers a way to access content from any device allows them to share content from any device. Tis enables customers to organically re- fer a service to friends and family, which in turn increases the likelihood of at- tracting additional users.

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