The Boston Globe

Meantime, Google acquired Webpass, a San Francisco company that uses wireless technology instead of cables to deliver high-speed Internet services to businesses and apartment buildings.

Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates in Dallas, said RCN’s new service could speed the rollout of competing offerings from Boston’s other broadband providers, Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.

“Where we see it emerging in markets we’ll often see co ...read more

Each is a decent enough product, but they’ve generated hardly any interest from consumers. Research firm Parks Associates estimated in October that after 18 months, Sling TV had signed up only 1 million subscribers. PlayStation Vue only had about 100,000 according to a guesstimate served up by Bloomberg BusinessWeek in June.

From the article "For Cord Cutters, AT&T’s New Virtual Cable Service An Unlikely Solution" by Hiawatha Bray.

But analysts estimate that Sling has racked up fewer than 1 million subscribers since it launched in February 2015. Vue's numbers are harder to get a handle on, but it's not on the list of top 10 most popular online video services compiled by research firm Parks Associates. Neither service reports subscriber numbers.

From the article "DirecTV Wants To Be The Next Online Substitute For Cable" by Tali Arbel.

And cable industry analyst Brett Sappington, of Parks Associates in Dallas, said that companies like Tivo already offer third-party cable set-top boxes, but few consumers purchase them.

“Many don’t even consider the option of buying a set-top box somewhere else,” Sappington said.

But Parks Associates estimates a third of US homes with broadband Internet access have purchased Internet video-streaming devices, so a box that could deliver both Internet video and cable TV mi ...read more

But the Xbox One is up against a host of less sophisticated but less expensive options. Internet streaming devices such as Apple TV, Roku, and Google Inc.’s Chromecast deliver sharp online video for less than $100.

According to the research firm Parks Associates, about 14 percent of US homes with broadband access already have one of these video players. And that doesn’t count the millions of homes with other devices that can stream Internet videos, such as Blu-ray video disk ...read more

The rise of mobile devices such as tablets is accelerating this trend. According to the research firm Parks Associates, Americans now spend 1.7 hours a week watching video on smartphones and 8.2 hours on computers; meanwhile, traditional TV viewing is declining, to 18.9 hours a week, compared with 20.4 hours a year ago.

“Because consumers are able to get content when they want it, how they want it, they are filling time on other platforms,” said Brett Sappington, a digital m ...read more

Still, none of it will matter if Game of Thrones Ascent fails to attract a lot of players. “If you don’t generate enough critical mass of both paying and nonpaying users, the game doesn’t really get off the ground,” said industry analyst Brett Sappington of Parks Associates in Dallas. “If there are not many other players, it’s not very interesting.”

But Sappington said Disruptor Beam’s new game has a good chance of success. Despite the slowdown in Facebook gaming, tens of mi ...read more

According to Parks Associates, a Dallas technology research company, most Americans with broadband Internet access own some kind of digital fitness device, with digital scales being the most popular.

But more sophisticated gadgets are much less commonplace. Just 26 percent use a digital blood pressure tester, 13 percent have a digital pedometer to measure distances run or walked, about the same number have an electronic blood glucose tester, and 6 percent use a digital watch ...read more