Smart devices provide remote network configuration and management, deliver new broadband services.
You probably don’t give much thought to your remote users’ broadband modems. But chances are your network administrators have spent considerable time walking those users through still-tricky wireless router setups and network adapter installations so they could share that connection within the home. The good news is the next-generation broadband devices – smart modem/routers, also known as residential or broadband gateways – are easing home network configuration and maintenance, and getting your staff back handling more appropriate tasks.
Also:
The latest, greatest gateways
Pondering cable providers’ plans
A residential gateway is a Layer 3 class device that runs firmware for routing, security and remote manageability. Typically offered as part of a DSL or cable home network package, gateways also include some combination of Wi-Fi, Ethernet, phone line and power line network technology. Remote configuration and management tools let the service provider handle the network details – which reduces support calls and provides a new revenue source in one move. As important, gateways give service providers a platform for providing additional services such as stateful packet inspection, firewalls, parental controls, voice, video and remote monitoring, which are downloaded to the box via firmware. Today, many broadband providers offer home network product and support packages, but most advanced services are still in development.
Residential gateways aren’t new – 2Wire, Netopia and others have sold them directly or through service providers for three or four years. But sales foundered and companies disappeared before many service providers signed substantial deals. At a time when providers were focused on gaining subscribers, the gateway’s high cost proved unattractive. Plus, providers had spent so much money to upgrade their networks to deliver the services that they bristled at spending more to swap out modems with gateways, even though the benefits were clear.
As such they’ve faced a Catch-22. “Providers need to roll out advanced devices and generate new service revenue, while keeping capital expenditures as low as possible. But you can’t get incremental revenue without upgrading the modems,” says Kurt Scherf, an analyst at Parks Associates.
However, several trends working in concert have prompted Parks to predict strong growth, with the number of gateways surpassing that of modems by 2005. Among them are:
Home networks enter the mainstream. By year-end, 20 million people will have broadband access; 11 million will have a home network, according to Parks. This means increasing numbers of non-technical users are calling customer support, pressuring providers to find ways to increase ease of configuration and use.
Manufacturing costs drop. Prices of residential gateways are falling because of less-expensive system-on-a-chip designs and the decreased cost of wireless components. Today, providers can buy modems and gateways for about the same cost, when two and three years ago gateways cost $50 to $70 more each, says Jeff Porter, marketing vice president at Netopia.
Push to create gateway standards. CableLab’s CableHome and the DSL Forum’s DSLHome both are working to commoditize gateways to decrease the cost to service providers and free them to partner with a variety of gateway manufacturers. Creating gateway standards also opens the market to newer players, such as DSL modem makers Efficient Networks and Westell (which own 53% and 35% of the DSL equipment market, respectively), and small office/home office hardware vendors Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco; Netgear, SMC Networks and others.
Linksys sells a cable gateway that uses the CableHome 1.0 specification to Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. CableHome provides the built-in auto-configuration and remote management. DSLHome, although a bit behind, is developing a similar standard in its Working Texts 82 and 87.
2Wire and Netopia say their mature software platforms set them apart. But what they call mature and advanced, others call proprietary. 2Wire’s back-end management system makes it extremely easy to deploy and manage DSL gateways, and its platform is poised to deliver whatever services that provider partners want. In time, the DSLHome group makes similar capabilities standard fare.
In addition to back-end tools, Netopia’s Porter stresses the sophistication of its Netopia parental control application, which isn’t just for families with school-age children. The network management application lets the home IT manager set up user profiles, and monitor and control the Web sites each user visits.
Matt McRae, Linksys director of broadband, agrees. “DSLHome creates a commodity market, but then you innovate on top. There are good parental controls and bad ones,” he says. Another differentiator will be voice capability, a feature McRae says Linksys is uniquely positioned to deliver, by building products using its technology and that of its parent Cisco.
Even so, all residential gateway makers are developing software applications or partnering with others to deliver them. And because users buy or rent gateways from their service providers, choice is limited. The residential gateway market likely will grow large enough to maintain a handful of vendors, although it might favor DSL and cable equipment manufacturers, and a company like Cisco/Linksys, which has established provider partnerships. But when standards are in place, your users won’t care who makes their box, only that it works reliably and delivers the applications they want.
