X

Consumers want to download content if the explosion in You Tube is anything to go by says a leading research Company. They also say that WiFi is set to take off.

“The explosion of YouTube has shown that consumers really are going to be viewing content over the Internet,” said ABI Research Director for Digital Home Mike Wolf. “It makes sense to get that content from the PC to the TV.” That bridge between PC and TV is seen by some as a key driver of WiFi’s expansion into consumer electronics products.

A shift in how entertainment is delivered to the home will increase demand for consumer electronics products with wireless networking capabilities and ignite explosive growth for WiFi , according to a study released this week by ABI Research .

In the report, ABI forecasted that shipments of WiFi-enabled consumer electronic devices will surge from 40 million in 2006 to 249 million in 2011.

A number of developments are driving consumer electronics manufacturers to embed WiFi in their products, explained ABI Research Director for Digital Home Mike Wolf.

“There’s more content [and] more portable devices, and things like online gaming services necessitate WiFi,” he told TechNewsWorld.


Watershed Events
A major brake on the spread of WiFi in consumer electronics devices was content, noted Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group.

“The ability to deliver content to devices has existed for awhile,” Enderle told TechNewsWorld, “but the problem has been content owners being unwilling to license their product so it can be delivered that way.”

That resistence to digital delivery of entertainment content was changed by two watershed events, maintained Wolf.

“When iTunes announced it was going to start distributing TV shows, it opened the flood gates,” he said. “You started seeing all the big studios saying they were going to put some of their key video assets online.

“The explosion of YouTube has shown that consumers really are going to be viewing content over the Internet,” he continued. “It makes sense to get that content from the PC to the TV.”

Bridging the PC-TV Gulf
That bridge between PC and TV is seen by some as a key driver of WiFi’s expansion into consumer electronics products.

“We’re going to see a big spike in WiFi devices when Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)  brings out its iTV device next year,” asserted Enderle.

iTV is the code name for a PC-to-TV bridging device that Apple Computer is expected to introduce in early 2007.

Besides content problems, ABI Senior Analyst Philip Solis cited two other challenges that have, in the past, slowed WiFi infiltration of consumer electronics products.

Slow Standard Approval
“The development of a market for WiFi-enabled consumer electronics has been hampered by technology limitations such as power consumption, but it has also been delayed by consumer electronics vendors’ hesitation as they waited to see what would happen with 802.11n,” he stated.

802.11n is the standard for the next generation of WiFi devices. It’s faster and has better range than current standards.

“With the 802.11n standard set to be ratified in a little over a year,” he continued, “the Wi-Fi Alliance’s decision to certify solutions based on a draft 2.0 for 802.11n, and vendors’ intentions to release products based on the current WiFi protocols, this market is set for growth.”

Right now, though, network speed inside the home isn’t much of an issue, according to Enderle.

Saving Power
Since there have been problems with licensing movies, most of what’s traveling around the home is music, which isn’t taxing the bandwidth of home networks, he explained.

“Bandwidth could be a problem in the future, but right now the bottleneck is content availability,” Enderle said. “If we had 802.11n, we’d still have difficulty getting the legal content we want to move around the house.”

Not only does 802.11n address bandwidth challenges, but it’s also designed to conserve power, according to ABI’s Wolf.

“Since you can move content much quicker, you can get a portable device into power saving mode much quicker,” he noted.

728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
FA 979 HN MDF SG14 14gen 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
Hisense KV BannerAd 728 90 Consumers Want To Download Content
Px7 S3 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
250527 SAV Channel news June25 Leaderboard 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
4Square Media Banner Ads Update at 5 July JSAU05JUL1 Buddy 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
Westan 728x90px Consumers Want To Download Content
Flick of a switch 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
BEL2535 BPB024 4SQ Banners 728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
Skullcandy 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
4Square Media Banner Ads Update at 5 July JSAU05JUL1 MR 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
appliance retailer leaderboard may 728x90 Hitachi updated Consumers Want To Download Content
JBL TourPro3 728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
HAIER Series 600 FLW HPD Pairs 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
MOTO 36331576 Q3 Ad Banners 728x90 2 Consumers Want To Download Content
ELX DIG Crosscat Promo 728x90 Mar25 Consumers Want To Download Content
AU X8 Banner 728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
Marshall 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
Uniden Channelnews SoloX July 2024 728x90 1 Consumers Want To Download Content
Arlo July Promo Digital 728x90 2 Consumers Want To Download Content
728 x 90 Consumers Want To Download Content
GOTHAM 728px x 90px Consumers Want To Download Content
ChannelNews AZ100 728x90 Consumers Want To Download Content
BlueAnt 4SQM PumpAirUltra 728x90px Consumers Want To Download Content


YOU MAY ALSO LIKE