WORLDWIDE MARKET RESEARCH REPORT - CISE

EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920
Work Package: 6
Type of document: Report
Date: 20.12.2007
File name: OP_WP6_D37_V1.0.doc Version: 1.0
Title: Worldwide Market Research Report 33 / 356
• AMR is provided by 3 providers, and planned by another two providers
• Telephony (“VoIP”) is offered by 3 providers, with a 4th testing VoIP. Only 2 providers
project a growth of their telephony business
• Both telesurveillance and Smart Homes applications are offered by 2 providers, both
of whom predict future growth for their companies
• Two service providers own 47% of the total subscriber base (total of 27730
subscribers reported)
• The number of subscribers per provider varies significantly (from 130 to > 15.000)
• Austrian and German providers together reported the largest concentration of PLC
subscribers (73%)
• The most frequently identified future growth candidates for PLC applications are
AMR and Smart Homes
4.4 Implications of the Survey
While the survey sample was relatively small, one can nonetheless recognize some trends
regarding future services to be provided over PLC infrastructures:
• the previously heralded VoIP application has not fulfilled its promise. Initially it was
held that the combination of Internet access and telephony would result in a positive
business case. However the strong decline of the price for telephony, coupled with
the complexity and integration cost of the telephony service have shied away most
PLC service providers. In the meantime, such developments as “true” VoIP, using
laptops, PCs, and PDAs, the significant growth of pre-selection numbers and
services (e.g. Skype) have reduced the telephone call to a commodity service.(see
also Chapter 5, Use Cases).
• Most PLC providers still are relatively small operations, having only partially
penetrated their total available markets in Western European countries. This could