Warning. Shameless self-promotion ahead!

How long does it take IPTV Operators to install their services? That’s the principal question behind a research report I’ve written, called “IPTV Home Networking Strategies” published by Multimedia Research Group.

Aside from home installation times, I also looked at strategies for home networking for IPTV Operators and some new technologies (HANA and DLNA) that promise to make it easier to connect all our IP-related devices in the future. For example, do you k now the differences between HANA and DLNA? Do you know what they are? They’re not used very often right now, but they have great promise in a hyper-connected home.

In performing our research, we surveyed the Top 60 IPTV Operators around the world and asked them about the home installation times from the 1st set-top box to the 3rd STB. We broke down results by geography (Asia, North American and Europe), by home networking technology (HomePNA, Powerline and MOCA) and by 1st, 2nd and 3rd STB installation.

The results? They’re pretty surprising.

• The average total installation time from the curb to 3 STBs is 3.79 person-hours.
• North American IPTV operators had the highest overall total average installation times with 5.16 person hours.
• Europe had the lowest total average installation times: 2.87 person-hours.
• 38% of respondents reported using HomePNA as their home networking technology. the most popular answer.
• HomePNA also had the highest overall average installation times at 4.47 person-hours.
• Of all the home networking technologies, powerline had the lowest overall average installation times: 2.21 person-hours.

Why is the U.S. Slower?

Generally, the U.S. had higher install times because IPTV Operators (AT&T and Verizon primarily) have rolled out their services later than Asian and European Operators. We’re finding that experience helps–installers can teach other installers about best practices and lower their installation times. Plus, North American Operators give customers a more personalized in-home installation experience, whereas Europe for example has more customer self-installs.

Also, Europe tends to use more powerline networking (networking via electrical outlets), which lowers their install times because Operators don’t need to run new wires or drill holes. Despite the popularity of HomePNA, we also found that Operators are still using Cat-5 cable to wire homes, especially in North America.

Another surprising fact was that Operators are using more than one home networking technology. Sometimes it’s a combination of a coax line (HomePNA or MoCA) as well as wireless (usually via Ruckus Wireless, which is targeted at video delivery). Or it could be a combination of Cat-5 and some other wired networking. Clearly, much depends on the home and how many coax lines are already installed as well as how many set-top boxes need to be installed.

Although Operators have chosen their home networking technology, they still like to keep their options when they arrive at a customer’s home–telephone wires, powerlines, coax, wireless or Cat-5. AT&T has chosen HomePNA (coax) as its primary home networking technology, whereas Verizon is using MoCA (also coax).

The report focuses on lots more (best practices, home networking strategies for IPTV Operaties, how each networking technology works) so I can’t cover everything here. (You can purchase it by following the links to the report above.)

However, I will be covering home networking and IPTV installations in future posts. Let me know, via comments, what you’re interested in so I can zoom in on specific areas.

Bonus:Telephony Online did a quick story on this, which basically highlighted some of the results of the survey and provided some quotes from Gary Schultz, managing director at MRG.

Technorati Tags: IPTV, home networking, IPTV installation, MoCA, HomePNA, Powerline, UPA, HomePlug, Ruckus Wireless, AT&T, Verizon, U-Verse, FiOS TV,

According to a survey from British Music Rights, 80% of kids are willing to pay for a legal P2P system. The group surveyed U.K. youths aged 14-22 about their music habits–from uploading their own original songs, illegal downloads, and how they feel about digital music.

Young people today are already using P2P to get their music, so it makes sense that they are comfortable with using a legal P2P system. About 63% of respondents said that they download music using P2P file-sharing networks.

Unfortunately, there is no legal, pay P2P system available now. So kids are doing what they know: downloading lots of music illegally with P2P. The survey found that respondents had an average of 1770 tracks, of which half were downloaded illegally. They also share music by trading CDs, or copying music from their friends’ hard drives. Seems pretty hard for the RIAA to stop this kind of piracy, isn’t it?

Music labels should take a long look at this study. It shows how kids’ habits about digital music are much different than adults, simply because they’ve grown up with things like P2P, social media and the decline of CD sales. If they don’t heed what kids are already doing today, how can they hope to stay relevant in the future? Labels need to start realizing that their old business models are changing rapidly and they need to adapt with different business models.

Interestingly, the study found that 60% of young people would still purchase CDs. even with a legal file-sharing service. Primarily, that’s because they want to own something physical.

Some highlights:

• 90% of respondents own an MP3 player
• 58% have copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own
• 95% said that they copy music in some way
• 42% have allowed P2P users to upload music from their computer.
• Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music

Bonus: Press release from BMR here.

Bonus #2: Article from Ars Technica.

The Nielsen Company released results on April’s Internet video consumption, and found that kids aged 2 to 11 view more videos than adults (51 streams per viewer vs. 44). Teens, however, were the most active Internet video consumers. They viewed 74 streams per viewer for an average of 132 minutes per viewer.

Younger kids consume big brands like Disney, Barbie and Nick Jr., while teens focus on music videos and movie sites like Buzznet, Bebo and Atlantic Records.

Since kids having been growing up with the Internet and online video, they are more accustomed to seek out content they want at home and are heavy users.

Overall, Nielsen’s monthly VideoCensus report for April 2008 found that YouTube was number one yet again with 73.5 million unique viewers and 4 billion total streams. All metrics that Nielsen is reporting have gone up.

• Unique viewers have gone up 3.7% from March 2008 to 120 million people.

• Total streams are up 9.3% at 7 billion.

• Streams per viewer are up 5.3% at 64 streams.

• Time per viewer is up 4.0% at 143 minutes.

It seems that cable companies are finally getting tired of competing with all the free TV shows that are streaming over the Internet. According to an article in AdAge.com, Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt said that they do care when TV networks put their full-length content online and essentially bypass cable TV.

This is a fight that’s been a long time coming. Hollywood studios and networks are finally realizing that they want to reach the most number of people as possible and not be constrained by traditional broadcast TV models. For example HBO has hosted many full-length shows online, as have ABC (Desperate Housewives, Lost), NBC (Hereos) and others.

Studios are embracing this new “Hollywood 2.0″ mentality that they want wider options for their content, and different mediums rather than trying to keep everyone tuned into their TV sets. In fact, a Time Warner cable spokesperson said they are prepared to withhold some subscriber revenue from the networks.

“Our point of view is that there is a segment of our audience that is living more primarily online than they are living on other platforms,” said Erik Flannigan, exec VP-digital media of MTV Networks’ Entertainment Group. “As some of our actions have made clear, the consumer will have many places they want to consume content. As long as we’re putting forth that experience and getting the lion’s share of the advertising, everybody wins.”

I don’t think that it will come to that, however. Cable companies are scared, and are trying to say and do anything to make people understand that they feel threatened by the Internet. Broadcast TV is being threatened–by DVRs, Internet delivery and even DVDs. But any major change to the established broadcast cable TV systems won’t happen for many years.

Some cable providers, like Comcast, have embraced the Internet and have developed web properties (like FanCast.com). It seems that other TV providers will have to learn how to adapt in the face of the growing Internet menace.

Technorati Tags: FanCast, Comcast, Advertising, AdAge, Ad Age, Cable TV, cable