600 million subs can't be wrong: Asia Pacific, led by China, is dominating the rapid increase in broadband subscribers, a number which globally surpassed 600 million in the first quarter of 2012, the Broadband Forum reports. More than 16.11 million lines were added during Q1, a 2.7 percent increase sequentially and an 11.48 percent jump over the same period last year. Broadband shows no signs of slowing down, Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum, said in a statement from the Communicasia show in Singapore. "It is just 18 months since we celebrated the 500 million subscriber watershed and even less time since IPTV subscribers reached 50 million - yet in both cases growth is still accelerating." News release (PDF)
Smart home market catches consumer interest: New aspects to the smart home business model, such as entertainment, security monitoring, control, and health, will help drive this emerging market segment from a $25 billion market in 2012 to a $60 billion market by 2017, according to Juniper Research. And new service providers Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) will be able to play a major role in the evolution of the smart home. However, collaboration is the key to success. "Cable operators and broadband service providers have a major role to play as they have an existing billing relationship with the consumers," said Nitin Bhas, author of Juniper's latest report. "Bundling other features into existing services enable them to be in a much better position within the pyramid, compared to other new entrants". News release
Streaming video a bandwidth juggernaut: Consumption of bandwidth due to streaming video by corporate organizations worldwide increased more than 300 percent between November 2011 and May 2012, Palo Alto Networks reports. The research firm conducted peer-to-peer (P2P) and streaming-video traffic assessments for 2,036 organizations worldwide. Compared to the last assessment period of April-November 2011, "total bandwidth consumed by streaming video quadrupled to 13% of all bandwidth on enterprise networks and now represents a more significant infrastructure challenge to organizations." YouTube, Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), and generic HTTP video were the top three bandwidth consumers in the Americas. Article