Telecom markets in India, China to drive residential gateway market to 12.6 million units in 2015 : IHS

By Telecom Lead Team: Residential gateway and thin client
shipments are projected to reach 4.2 million units in 2012, up from 345,000
last year and 1,000 in 2010. Shipments will increase to 6.7 million units in
2013, to 10.4 million in 2014 and to 12.6 million by 2015, according to IHS.
Countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China may drive the gateway space
during the latter part of the decade and beyond.

 

Shipments of residential gateways and thin client boxes
are miniscule at present. Their numbers will grow as cable and wireless
operators start to roll out services offering connectivity and seamless access.

 

While the set-top box has been the heart of the home
media environment, acting as the home’s primary media interface to the outside
world and also connecting to the network and the TV, the residential gateway will
be the next step up as it is able to link together an even wider range of
devices,” said Jordan Selburn, senior principal analyst for consumer platforms
at IHS.

 

Though gateway devices will center on the North American
region during the next few years and limit the size of the overall residential
gateway space in the near term, the market will expand as emerging regions
begin to adopt the model.

 

In North America, leading operators are moving to the
server/client model, with the Whole Home DVR” service offered by DirecTV,
Comcast and others as the first step.

 

Among service providers, gateways can save money by
allowing them to move to a server/client configuration that is less expensive
than putting a hard drive into each set-top box. Operators can charge for the
increased connectivity provided by gateways, boosting provider revenues in the
process.

 

The key component within the residential gateway box –
the media processor – is ready for prime time. The media processor requires
substantial computation power, and until recently was out of reach for media
processors without a separate co-processing chip.

 

Companies like Intel, Broadcom and STMicroelectronics are
launching products aimed at the gateway and client markets. Intel was the first
to release a chip for handling real-time transcoding, and began to forge
relationships with set-top box manufacturers.

 

Broadcom has the BCM7425 in volume production, while
STMicroelectronics has its Orly chip scheduled for production in mid-2012.

 

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