IPTV Providers Planning Significant Uptake of Set-Top Boxes

Campbell, Calif., May 20, 2014—Market research firm Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2014 IP Set-Top Box Features and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which analyzes the trends and assesses the needs of service providers deploying IP set-top boxes (STBs) to deliver video services.

“For set-top box (STB) vendors, the challenge is finding the right balance between adding new technologies and features while reducing costs to meet service providers’ demands and remain competitive. To do so, vendors need to build standard solutions instead of custom ones for each service provider,” advises Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics Research.

“Adapting IP STB offerings for targeted markets is another factor,” continues Heynen. “In China and India, low-cost IP STBs with fewer features, lower functionality, and more localized content are enough to meet customers’ needs, but in North America and Western Europe, there’s a growing appetite for more advanced STBs, like video gateways, which require a higher bill-of-materials cost, and the addition of more advanced features.”

Highlights of the report include:

  • 802.11n dual-mode and 2x2 MIMO are currently the most widely-used WiFi technologies on IP set-top boxes (STBs), though 802.11ac shows the biggest gains among survey participants, growing from 6% today to 67% next year
  • Operator respondents rated TR-069 for remote device/service-level management and hard drive for integrated DVR support as the top IP STB features
  • Remote programming via tablet or mobile device heads the list of IP STB applications, rated highly by 67% of respondents, up 6 percentage points from last year’s survey
  • The top 3 IP STB suppliers currently installed by respondents are Arris/Motorola, Cisco, and Amino

For its 34-page set-top box operator survey, Infonetics interviewed purchase-decision makers at incumbent telco operators from North America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA that use IP STBs to deliver video services or will by May 2015. Featuring an IP STB vendor scorecard, the study explores operator requirements for IP STBs, including features, applications, services, video transcoding, home networking technologies, hard drive capacities, and opinions of vendors. Vendors examined include ADB, Amino, Arris/Motorola, Cisco, Entone, Huawei, Netgem, Pace, Sagemcom, Samsung, Skyworth, ZTE, and others. To buy the survey, contact Infonetics:http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp.