Arris Technology Executive Sees Future Home With Wi-Fi Extenders in Every Room

Video will drive the need for additional data speed as 4K TV content -- whether homegrown or from over-the-to providers -- and HDR will demand a bigger pipeline, said Cheevers. As more networks with 1 Gbps roll out, consumers will be able to realize the benefits of next-gen video. Previous-generation Internet pipelines in the 30 Gbps range had to employ adaptive bitrate technology to throttle back video to accommodate network traffic, he said. IP video goes down to as low as 700 kbps “to keep the stream going,” but gigabit networks will be able to keep up with data demand, he said.

Comcast has begun 2 Gbps service in select markets and Google Fiber has been rolling out its 1 Gbps high-speed Internet service in “sneak previews” of what’s to come, said Cheevers. Gigabit technologies will begin to scale mid-2016, he said. Cheevers pushed Arris’ DOCSIS 3.1 solution as a low-cost option for enabling gigabit service using existing infrastructure, a DOCSIS 3.1 modem and a software upgrade through the company’s Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) device.

That extra pipeline will come in handy as HDR rolls out and more consumers buy 4K Ultra HD TVs, said Cheevers. “The HDR-level movie is a significant multi-gigabyte set of fragments and files,” but the size can be managed in the cloud where the scheduler can talk with the hard disk or solid-state drive and fit the download to network capacity, he said. “You can burst it so it’s sent down really quickly,” he said.

Also coming is millimeter wave, or 60 GHz technology, that’s currently being used in fast sync technology from Dell and other companies, said Cheevers. A movie can be offloaded quickly via the cloud to a NAS (network attached storage) drive overnight, and then a consumer could use the gigabit access network and speedy WiGig to shuttle the movie to a tablet for viewing on a plane, he said. Synching HD or Ultra HD movie in seconds via wireless link “is a little bit more in the future,” said Cheevers, but WiGig products are beginning to trickle out.

“Wi-Fi is so part of our lives now" that consumers no longer say the Internet is down when there's a service interruption, said Cheevers. "They say they don’t have Wi-Fi,” he said. Consumers choose Wi-Fi connectivity for 80 percent of devices that come into the home today, said Arris research, he said, citing TVs and printers as examples. He predicted a not-too-distant time in the future with no hard-wired tech connections in the home except for a speed-dependent video game console.

The need for range extenders and additional network access points in the home will lead to new industrial designs and form factors to make networking gear something consumers don't just tolerate but embrace, said Cheevers. Companies will spend more on industrial design for access points -- beyond today’s “black plastic box” -- to get the gear in more rooms, he said. “There are some clever ideas" about incorporating access points into everyday products, that will include attractive visual elements, audio and voice control, he said. The idea is to have the Wi-Fi "not locked up in a cabinet" or in a basement because “the stakes are huge now for Wi-Fi," and every service provider wants to provide additional new services that spin off a direct connection to a device, he said.

Companies like Arris are working on the backbone to support future home networks that operators can use as a service differentiator. Cheevers said MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0 speeds will go from 800 Mbps to 2.5 Gbps speeds by second half 2016. When that happens, the coax network in the home won’t just be used for gigabit video but will also be a backbone enabling 1-Gbps speeds into the house and the ability to put “two or more extenders at close to gigabit speeds," he said. Bottom line, said Cheevers: Operators will put more extenders in customers’ homes to boost access speeds into every room, he said.

Wi-Fi range extenders will have an added IoT function in the home, said Cheevers. He cited Bluetooth low energy used by medical devices and wearables and the 802.15.4 standard used by Google’s Thread and ZigBee as the “most important” radios for connected home solutions. Operators can add those radios to access points, turning them into IoT hubs, too, said Cheevers.

Cheevers predicted a “deluge” of service side IoT devices in 2016. Until now, consumers have entered the smart home by picking a favorite device and building around it, he said, using the Nest Smart Thermostat or WeMo devices as examples. That has led to a “fragmented” market, but standards are starting to emerge that will make the smart home market more cohesive, he said. Primary standards representing 80-90 percent of the market are Apple HomeKit, Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium, Qualcomm’s AllJoyn and Thread. All are viable add-ons for a gateway, Cheevers said. By second half 2016, consumers will see a “plethora” of service-side smart home devices, he said. Operators can make a "much more pleasurable" smart home experience for consumers by aggregating a thermostat and a camera “into a single user experience rather than having to go out and buy different brands of stuff,” he said.

Arris research shows consumers have an appetite for smart home technology, said Cheevers, citing data from Arris’ Consumer Entertainment Index that says 80 percent of consumers are willing to pay an average of $14.17 per month for IoT-related services. Some 43 percent said they’d prefer a single monthly bill for broadband, TV and smart home services, the report said. One in 10 respondents in the survey, which came out in summer, already are automating elements of their home, primarily for security. Cameras and sensors had the biggest appeal for respondents, while connected kitchen appliances had the least, the study said.

On the trend toward cord cutting, Cheevers gave some hope to service providers using Comcast as an example. Comcast lost 40,000 video subscribers last quarter, “the lowest ever in their history,” said Cheevers. Most of those were old cable guide customers, not high-tier subscribers, he said. He credited Comcast’s investment in advanced features -- a modern user guide, voice control and recommendations for viewing -- for minimizing subscriber churn. “There is a formula to keep people paying $143 or $170 a month for broadband and TV. It’s all about listening to the viewers and tracking things like binge viewing,” he said.

A refresh cycle is underway to downsize set-top boxes to “minimal footprints,” improve graphics performance, and add HEVC compression and HDR capability for 4K video, Cheevers said. Set-tops are also moving toward Wi-Fi-only, he said.

As 4K programming rolls out, “it won’t be on QAM” other than a couple of deployments for marketing purposes, said Cheevers, saying 4K has to roll out on IP. “You need the ability in the case of utmost congestion … where you can drop down the bitrate a little bit,” he said. IP is important to 4K delivery and it will be increasingly sent over Wi-Fi as operators start to let go of the screw-in RF cable connection, Cheevers said.