Consumers in the United Kingdom who have broadband in their homes are interested in getting alerts on their mobile devices about the status of their home, indicates new research from Parks Associates.
The research firm revealed that residents of over one-third of U.K. homes that have a broadband connection would be interested in getting alerts from a service provider on their smartphone, PC or tablet computers about any issue going on in their home such as a break-in, fire or a flood.
And while the energy measurement concept is still nascent, 35 percent of consumers surveyed said they are "very interested" in a service where household appliances like the air conditioning system could, for example, automatically adjust their settings to reduce electricity usage.
However, European service providers have been a bit slower to deploy multiscreen services. Unlike in North America, where 86 percent of pay-TV subscribers have access to TV Everywhere services, only 66 percent in Western Europe and 21 percent in Eastern Europe have these services.
While deployment of multiscreen services overall in Europe is behind that of North America, Parks said that more of the UK user population, for example, use these services.
"Only 16% of pay-TV households in the U.K. regularly use multiscreen services, but that is higher than the usage rates throughout the U.S., which range from 3% to 13% among the largest U.S. operators," said Stuart Sikes, president of Parks Associates.
In the United States, telcos and cable operators alike, including AT&T (NYSE: T), Frontier (Nasdaq: FTR), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), have made initial strides with home automation services.
Verizon and Comcast, for instance, offer a number of home control packages that range in price from $29.95 to $59.99, depending on the type of service package a consumer or SMB chooses to buy.
For more:
- see the release
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