Case Study

Why CSPs Are in a Unique Position to Deliver Digital Home Services

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  August 22, 2016

Telephone companies started out offering telephone services. They then got into broadband Internet access and cable TV services. Then they began packaging the three together in triple play packages. The cablecos followed a similar path, but came at it from a different angle, starting out with cable TV services, followed by broadband, and then the more difficult telephony services.

The next logical step for these service providers is to offer digital home services, Els Baert, fixed networks product manager at Nokia, wrote in a recent blog.

Digital home services, which Baert defines as a mixture of connected home and smart home, leverage outside the home broadband technologies paired with in-home connectivity, sensors, and smart devices to provide new value for end users and new revenue opportunities for communications services providers.

Home security services can provide subscribers whose homes are outfitting with sensors and/or surveillance cameras with the ability to monitor their living spaces remotely. Sensor-enabled motion detection solutions can trigger alerts or launch live video feeds so homeowners can see what’s happening at their places of residence.

Energy management is another services falling under the digital home category. That allows for subscribers to do things such as turn off their lights and appliances, and adjust the temperature in their homes, remotely in an effort to save money and resources.

Home automation is somewhat similar, allowing for the remote control of doors, heating and cooling systems, lights, smoke detectors, and other home systems and appliances in an effort to ensure a customer’s home is at the ideal temperate and other settings upon their arrival or the arrival of their guests.

Then there’s health monitoring. This is a horse of a different color, but it still falls into the digital home realm because it can employ many of these same technologies to allow family, friends, and health care workers to monitor the activities of patients in their homes. This can, for example, enable elderly folks to stay in their own homes longer than they might be able to without it.

CSPs are in a unique position when it comes to delivering digital home services, said Baert. That’s because they already have an ultra-broadband modem, router, or hub in their customers’ homes whereas smart home providers could need to add another device. 




Edited by Alicia Young