"broadband" articles

After years of waiting and planning, the era of 5G has arrived. Within the past 12 months, all four of the major US mobile service providers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint & Verizon) have introduced services. European operators introduced services in countries including Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK and South Korea rolled out 5G services in April. Throughout the globe, carriers have announced plans to have 5G networks operational by the end of 2019 or early 2020. 5G has long...

I recently attended the AT&T SHAPE conference held at the Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, CA. In its third year, AT&T promotes the event as the convergence of technology and entertainment. Attended by 20,000 people, the two-day event featured a series of presentations and panel discussions ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) to esports and the need for greater women’s inclusion in the entertainment industry. Speakers and panelists included such...

As adoption of smart home devices continues to grow, the smart home needs an interface to connect all the moving pieces in the home. For devices that are connected to cloud APIs, voice control has been transformational. While the UI experience is compelling, the true value of voice assistants is in their ability to unify control of fragmented and even disparate ecosystems. Consumers with smart home devices that are not part of a larger home control system (which is the majority of smart...

It’s no secret that US broadband households are a bandwidth hungry group. Driven by increasing numbers of connected devices in the home, greater consumption of streaming media, and always-on access and Wi-Fi, consumers are steadily opting for faster broadband connections. Parks Associates research shows that average service speeds among US broadband households have steadily increased over the last four years. The most dramatic shift has taken place in the 100 Mbps-999 Mbps tier;...

Parks Associates is supporting the 16th-annual  What's Next Boomer Business Summit . American Idol  meets aging tech entrepreneurs at The What’s Next Innovation Challenge , an event hosted by Mary Furlong & Associates and sponsored by AARP Innovation Labs during the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit held in New Orleans on April 18. Competition winners receive $10,000 in funding for their product or company and the opportunity to continue to the...

According to Parks Associates research, the percentage of broadband households not intending to purchase a smart home device due to security and privacy concerns has increased from 21% in Q1 2017 to 32% in Q1 2018. Further, more than one-fourth of U.S. broadband households strongly agree that it’s impossible to keep their personal data away from unauthorized users. Security and privacy concerns are clearly becoming top of mind for many connected consumers. As the number of...

By Brett Sappington and Billy Nayden What a great coincidence that AT&T’s acquisition of the company that brought us the power struggles of Westeros and Game of Thrones is likely to set off a new era of competition in pay TV. With a federal judge approving AT&T’s $85 billion buyout of Time Warner late Tuesday afternoon, the courts cleared a path for a number of imminent media deals that will undoubtedly bring substantial change to the media landscape....

According to Parks Associates research, 76% of North American broadband households use Wi-Fi as their primary connected technology , but in the past year, 37% of U.S. broadband households report that their Wi-Fi network seems slow. If operators want to compete effectively in the connected home, they will need to add value through premium CPE and a quality consumer experience. Parks Associates and Calix will discuss emerging trends for service providers in an upcoming webcast, The...