The latest news that 25 percent of homes worldwide have Wi-Fi is an impressive number. But turning the story around means three quarters of them do not have Wi-Fi. And Multimedia Research Group (News - Alert) considers that to be a major opportunity.

“Huge opportunities still exist in networking, not only for wireless but also for the wired segment,” the firm said in a recent statement.

It also predicted that wired home networking node shipments globally will increase about 272.5 percent between 2011 and 2016. That represents 30.1 percent compound annual growth.

What technology will be the most popular? It depends where you live.

“MoCA will be the leading wired home networking technology in North America over the forecast period, Western and Eastern Europe, and the Asia Pacific region will be led by deployments of HomePlug (News - Alert),” the firm speculated in a recent statement. “However, the rapid growth of G.hn in the Asia Pacific market, after its trials and commercial launch in 2012, promises to propel G.hn to become a major competitor to HomePlug and other technologies over an extended forecast period beyond 2016.”

In a related story, TMCnet reported that Wi-Fi continues to be popular with users in many parts of the world – and a recent study shows that the Wi-Fi equipment market increased by 16.5 percent.

The ABI Research (News - Alert) study also showed that 802.11N (Dual band) was the preferred wireless protocol during the first six months of this year, TMCnet added.

In related news, a recent study from Strategy Analytics (News - Alert) shows the total global number of Wi-Fi households will reach nearly 800 million in 2016, a penetration rate of 42 percent. It was also predicted by the study that more than 110 million Wi-Fi connections will be added in Chinese homes over the next five years.