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Can Amazon, Apple & Friends Make the Smart Home Simpler?![]() Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, 12/23/2019
The digital intelligence of smart homes is undoubtedly increasing, but so is the complexity for consumers who want all their gadgets and systems to work together. It's a significant enough challenge that Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance have formed Project Connected Home over IP. Project CHoIP -- as I'm going to call it, because I can -- announced that it "plans to develop and promote the adoption of a new, royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet." And it's notable that in addition to the rival web services giants joining forces in an effort to alleviate the current situation, Zigbee Alliance board members such as NXP Semiconductors, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric and Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) are in line to join the fray and contribute. See this press release for more details.
The move makes a lot of sense for all parties. Consumers are now faced with a baffling combination of products that might, or most likely not, work in harmony: Currently, consumers buying a digital home security system would have to consider whether it might work with existing smart home platforms such as Google Home or Amazon Echo. Finding common ground should help the market to grow at a faster pace. Blake Kozak, principal analyst of Smart Home and Security Technology at IHS Markit Technology, notes in a blog post about the project that the current status quo, characterized by multiple specifications and implementations, has made it "expensive for manufacturers and service providers to support the various standards." And, importantly, he notes that the project's work could be "an unequivocal game changer… if it removed the need for each device to have a dedicated app and allowed for full control of the device, regardless of platform." A single app to control all devices -- that would be truly useful. So it'll be a while before the market knows whether this effort will have any meaningful impact: "Unless this new standard can remove some of the pain points and hoops consumers need to jump through in order to connect the devices… then unfortunately this standard could end up being just another cog in the wheel of an already super-saturated market," notes Kozak. This isn't the only effort underway to simplify, and make the most of, the home network's potential: Verizon is urging the world's fixed broadband access network operators to support a residential gateway API development underway at open source group prpl Foundation in an effort to achieve consistency in what is a vital link between smart homes and network operators. — Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading |
Also in this roundup: Streamers ease off; Danes boost broadband availability; Veego teams up with Amdocs; Ukrtelecom takes GPON rural with Iskratel; and more.
Also in this roundup: RDK's popular; WBA assumes control of Cisco's OpenRoaming; Virgin Media offers gigabit to 1 million homes; and more.
Also in this broadband sector roundup: European operators ask for the improbable; Calix boasts new deals; US firms react to COVID-19; UK new builds to get Gigabit minimum.
Also in this broadband sector roundup: Why the UK needs more than just fiber investment promises; CityFibre tackles 'white finger'; FTTH dominates Portugal's fixed broadband lines.
Vendor is well placed to benefit from 5G network investments in South Korea and Japan, where Rakuten Mobile is a customer.
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Thursday, December 17, 2020
12:00 p.m. New York / 5:00 p.m. London Today’s access network architecture is under mounting pressure due to a continued surge in the number of connected devices, a proliferation of bandwidth-intensive customer applications and dramatic shifts in usage patterns related to the pandemic, such as work-from-home and e-learning. Learn why now is the right time for cable operators to build greenfield networks or expand their existing networks with 10G PON, arming customers with high-speed symmetrical broadband. Gain a clear understanding of the drivers impacting the access network and the various approaches being considered to deliver higher speed services. Plus, find out the best practices that operators are employing as they leverage the latest in passive optical technology to future-proof their networks. Topics to be covered include:
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