Keeping Up With the Current Trends in a Dynamic Video Market

• Today’s operators can improve experiences in the home remotely, with cloud-based solutions that can monitor and optimize device performance.

The dynamics in the video market are fueling discussions in the industry about new architectures and what options to implement, from the open platform of Android TV, to the latest standards introduced with DOCSIS 3.1 – to name just two. With so much going on in the market today, how do you cope?

That was one of the questions asked of Technicolor’s Luis Martinez-Amago, Deputy President Connected Home, in an executive interview with Light Reading TV at SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo 2017. Among the topics covered was the huge amount of broadband going to people’s homes these days. Once you have that, he says, this enormous opportunity opens up to improve the experience within the home.

There are two basic avenues for doing this. One is to introduce additional equipment into the home by way of Wi-Fi devices and extenders. According to Martinez-Amago, this solution may be required in about 20% of households. But with more advanced capabilities being built into today’s gateways, the other 80% may simply need to reconfigure the network in the home. These issues can be fixed by remote operators with cloud-based solutions; they can monitor what is happening in real-time, reconfigure access points, and deliver much better experiences to their customers in this way.

Martinez-Amago cites one solution from Technicolor that is leading in this endeavor: Wi-Fi Doctor. This cloud-based solution “supervises” all of the devices in the home that are using Wi-Fi. For example, Wi-Fi Doctor can reconfigure devices to reduce interference between them and optimize their performance. One large operator is already running Wi-Fi Doctor with more than a million devices.

Going forward, connectivity throughout the house will be the backbone for new IoT solutions beyond television and Internet services – making Wi-Fi an increasingly important component for the overall experience of the connected home.

Watch the full interview as Martinez-Amago talks video market trends with Light Reading’s Cable/Video Practice Leader Alan Breznick.