Cable Networks
have provided video and broadband Internet connections to the majority of U.S.
homes for more than a decade.

WiFi devices
have proliferated in the U.S. household, with 80 percent of homes using WiFi to
provide data connections to smartphones, tablets, laptops, televisions and
gaming consoles.

For the cable
MSOs, WiFi has become a critical part of their ability to deliver broadband
data services to consumers and WiFi has complemented investments in mobile
broadband assets and services.

For the
heaviest users of WiFi in the home, total bandwidth used is expected to
increase from more than 390 GB per month in 2011 to nearly 440 GB per month in
2015.

GR forecasts that WiFi will increase
from 55 percent of the total bandwidth used in 2011 to more than 75 percent in
2015. Importantly for the cable providers, this high level of data consumption
is driven principally by demand for video, both streamed and downloaded.

In-home WiFi
usage is important for cable MSOs such as Comcast, Cox Communications, Time
Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cablevision, Bright House Networks,
Suddenlink Communications, Mediacom Communications, Insight Communications and
CableOne to understand for several reasons:

WiFi provides a high quality data connection in the home
so users are accustomed to very low latency and high connection speeds.

WiFi is wireless and users, as this report concludes, are
increasingly accustomed to bandwidth-intensive activities on laptops,
smartphones and, increasingly, tablets.

In-home usage is a precursor to outside-the-home usage.
For example, consumers who watch a TV episode on a tablet in the home will
expect to do the same sitting in the park or at the airport.

This presents opportunities for the cable MSOs to offer
mobile 4G broadband services as a compliment to in-home WiFi solutions and
extend the consumer experience outside of the home. iGR believes this
will present an important opportunity for the cable companies to increase their
market differentiation and value to their customer base.

“Why
should the major cable providers care about how much WiFi is used in the home?
Because today’s consumers are expecting a world in which they always have
high-speed data access to anything they want and the cable MSOs have been the
principal providers of home video and broadband data services for more than a
decade,” says Matt Vartabedian, iGR’s
vice president of the wireless and mobile research service.

By
Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]