News

JupiterResearch Predicts Wireless Home Bandwidth Requirements Could Top 57 Mbps in 2009 (12/11/2004)

JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM), today released the results of its first wireless home bandwidth report, entitled "A Portrait of the Wireless Digital Home in 2009." The report forecasts the wireless home networking requirements for the broadband home from 2004 through 2009 and highlights important implications for consumer electronics and networking vendors.

The JupiterResearch report found that wireless bandwidth requirements for the typical broadband home with a wireless network will grow from less than 3 Mbps in 2004 to a likely 57 Mbps in 2009, with tech-savvy households of three individuals requiring up to 84 Mbps, driven primarily by changes in home use of consumer electronics and changing consumption patterns for digital media at home. Overall, in 2004 some 7.5 million U.S. households have a home network that is at least partly wireless. JupiterResearch forecasts that the number of wireless home network households in the U.S. will rise to 34.3 million by 2009.

The top reason consumers install a home wireless network is for sharing Internet access, according to a recent JupiterResearch consumer survey cited in the report. But alternative uses of wireless networks, such as streaming music from one's PC to the home stereo, are experiencing a quick uptake according to information from leading vendors in this area.

Streaming content will represent one of the biggest shifts in behavior as consumers move away from un-linked distributed devices to centralized storage, management and synchronization of media centers. "Consumers are beginning to shift their paradigms for Internet access, home networking and digital content management," said Julie Ask, a research director at JupiterResearch. "The number of consumer electronics devices using a wireless network in the home could explode over the next five years, driving bandwidth requirements beyond today's offerings," she added.

"To exploit this trend, consumer electronics manufacturers will increasingly need to conceive of their products as always-on nodes in a wireless network," said David Schatsky, Senior Vice President of Research at JupiterResearch, "while vendors of wireless networking gear will need to adapt their products for a role as consumer electronics and digital media enablers."

www.jupiterresearch.com