Telecom Lead India: Cable digitization efforts in
developing economies will be a key driver for cable broadband penetration
worldwide.
Cable digitization will be giving service providers
access to more lucrative markets with service revenues reaching the $50 billion
mark in 2017.
Cable technology’s adoption of DOCSIS 3.0, with higher
maximum speeds than DSL, is key competitive strength against Telco’s offering
only DSL service in the United States, Canada and parts of Western Europe.
Cable MSOs’ marketing focusing on use of advanced
services, such as video streaming, and number of devices in the home has
encouraged consumers to upgrade to higher bandwidth tiers,” said Adarsh
Krishnan, senior analyst, TV & video at ABI Research.
Looking to next generation bandwidth-hogging services,
including 3DTV and 4K video resolutions, technology providers are working with
operators to prove out the next generations of DOCSIS. DOCSIS 3.1 focuses on
upstream channel bonding for higher upload speeds.
Intel has demonstrated its Puma 6 modem achieving 1 Gbps
downlink using 24 channels, while Arris has tied together 12 modems to achieve
4.7 Gbps downlink,” said Sam Rosen, practice director of TV & video at ABI
Research.
Cable operators in developing regions are entering the
market for broadband services using the latest technologies – often
leapfrogging older protocols.
Cable MSOs’ ability to offer traditional video services
(the cable vendor’s historical business), broadband services, and digital VoIP
services (using EMTA’s) gives cable vendors a triple-play offering that has
attracted a large number of consumers.
As of 2011, China accounted for 57 percent of subscribers
in the Asia-Pacific region. Chinese government investment and cable
digitization initiative in an effort promote interplay between TV
broadcasters, telecom carriers and Internet operators have been instrumental in
this development.
