Skip to main content

Access to the Digital Home

On the road to the future, all highways to the home are broadband -- but who constructs and operates those digital delivery paths is anyone's guess. Cable, satellite, telephone-TV, high-speed Internet, wireless broadband and digital terrestrial television are all pipes that can deliver high-speed digital bit-streams to the home. "They're all jockeying for position," says Gerry Kaufhold, a principal analyst at In-Stat, a market-research firm specializing in communications and broadband.

But don't reserve a ringside seat for the knockout blow -- that might be a long time in coming. "The inroads being made by wireless and other emerging technologies will take some time before they trounce any existing wireline business," Interactive TV Alliance CEO Allison Dollar says. "There will be some very interesting mergers and acquisitions."

For example, WiMAX, Intel's high-speed wireless broadband service, is not set to roll out for another two to three years. "You don't displace 68 million cable and 23 million satellite subscribers overnight," Kaufhold says.

As broadband players position themselves for a long race, U.S. teenagers are busy reinventing how we consume media. Anywhere, anytime, any way is how they like it, and thanks to tricked-out cell phones, fat broadband pipes and a Santa's bag of new portable digital devices, they're getting exactly that.

"People will be creating their own entertainment experiences, alternative distribution will allow for mixing and matching of media and file-sharing, and other tools will let that material find its own audience," Dollar predicts.

Popular posts from this blog

Global Digital Business and IT Consulting Outlook

Across the globe, CEOs and their leadership teams continue to seek information and guidance about planned Digital Transformation initiatives and the most effective enterprise organization change management practices. Worldwide IT and Business Services revenue will grow from $1.13 trillion in 2022 to $1.2 trillion in 2023 -- that's a 5.7 percent year-over-year growth, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The mid-term to long-term outlook for the market has also increased -- the five-year CAGR is forecast at 5.2 percent, compared to the previous 4.9 percent. Digital Sevices & Consulting Market Development IDC has raised the growth projection despite a weak economic outlook, because of vendor performances across 2022, growth indicators from adjacent markets, increased government funding, and inflation impacts. The actual 2022 market growth was 6.7 percent (in constant currency), which was 87 basis points higher than forecast last year, alth

Why Instant Issuance Payment Cards Evolved

The global financial services sector continues to grow as more progressive organizations seek to gain a meaningful competitive advantage from their digital transformation initiatives. Across the globe, many regions are seeing a significant rise in 'instant issuance' activity from a physical and digital perspective, from both traditional and emerging innovative banking institutions. Digital Payments Market Development Customers increasingly demand instant access to banking services, with physical instant issuance enabling them to leave their branch equipped with a ready-to-go payment card. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the market for instantly issued physical payment cards will increase from 243.2 million shipments in 2022 to a forecast of 471.1 million in 2027. "Critically, instant issuance of payment cards is no longer limited to the physical," said Sam Gazeley, industry analyst at ABI Research . Indeed, the growing digitization of p

Open Banking Usage to Grow by 470 Percent

The Open Banking business model has been advantageous for Third-Party Providers (TPPs), helping them to extend their offerings into other areas of financial services with new capabilities. Open Banking is also advantageous for traditional banking institutions, despite the perceived loss of custodianship over their data, by providing greater accessibility to more bank services. Furthermore, Open Banking can help serve Mobile Internet providers that are able to leverage it to create tailored services according to customers’ preferences and/or economic limitations. Open Banking Market Development Since traditional banking services are made more convenient by TPPs via greater data access, customers can proactively manage their finances and shape the development of new financial offerings. This is particularly noticeable in the realm of Digital Payments, where retail merchants and customers transact through eCommerce, which has the greatest number of use cases for Open Banking. These includ