There is a great deal of talk in the industry about creating an “immersive in-home experience,” but defining what that is and how to deliver it is challenging given the rapidly evolving landscape and technology.
DZS recently commissioned a survey addressing these questions from more than 200 key decision makers and executives across the communications service provider, cable and technology sectors.
Define Immersive In-Home Experiences
When most of us think of an immersive in-home experience, we might envision a smart home where all our devices, appliances, gaming systems and doorbells are connected. We might also consider the Metaverse, where the combination of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), digital and physical worlds all sync to deliver a complete connected user experience.
The survey findings shed light on new and current immersive in-home experiences like the examples above and provided compelling insights for service providers looking to enhance their offerings. Most respondents defined an immersive in-home experience as one that included some form of AR/VR, Mixed Reality (digital technology that imitates a physical world to create a sense of immersion) or Extended Reality (a combination of AR/VR and Mixed Reality).
More than Just Speed
More than Just Speed
One of the more interesting takeaways from the responses was the perceived minimum broadband requirement for delivering such an experience.
More than 65% of participants said 100 – 800 megabits per second was adequate and nearly all – an astounding 95% of respondents – said that 1 gigabit of bandwidth would be enough.
Research suggests the average subscriber will probably need between three to five gigabits of bandwidth or throughput and latency of five to 20 milliseconds to deliver a fully immersive in-home experience. Industry executives and decision makers dramatically underestimate the amount of bandwidth required to deliver the next-generation user experiences that subscribers will demand.
When it comes to delivering an immersive in-home experience, connectivity and speed tend to be rated higher, but latency and picture quality are equally important. Take, for example gamers, who often lead technology trends: Most are willing to pay a premium for faster broadband speeds, lower latency and a higher picture quality to improve their experience and rapid response times. Delivering a complete immersive experience goes well beyond gaming. It is critically important in areas like cinematic video delivery of full feature length films such as the recent Top Gun “Maverick” movie and new advancements in telehealth and remote learning.
At DZS, we empower our broadband service provider customers to become tomorrow’s experience providers by transforming their networks and business models with multi-gigabit fiber broadband connectivity, service assurance and multi-vendor WiFi experience management solutions to deliver the ultimate subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE).
We enable this shift from service provider to experience provider because we uniquely understand and provide the level of hyper-fast connectivity and feature-rich cloud software that make it possible to deliver high-quality, next-generation experiences, which elevate the service provider’s relevance and value to its customers.
End-to-End Multi-vendor Visibility Empowers Both Service Provider and Subscriber
Another interesting finding from the survey: More than 80% of respondents felt that WiFi mesh networking was critical to delivering an immersive in-home experience. While some service providers offer a WiFi mesh solution, many are not yet aware that end-to-end service assurance and cloud-based WiFi experience management is even possible.
For example, 70% of connectivity issues can be traced to an in-home WiFi problem and not the service provider network. But what if there is a network-related issue? DZS offers a service provider’s network operations teams a complete end-to-end, vendor-agnostic view of their network and the ability to isolate and troubleshoot problems, whether in the network, home or business. Our customer data demonstrates a reduction of truck rolls by up to 44%, a decrease in customer service calls by 50% and an increase in customer retention by 20%.
When asked what service providers needed to ensure end-to-end and ‘always-on’ multi-gigabit broadband connectivity for better immersive in-home experiences, 73% of respondents said WiFi experience management solutions. Similarly, 67% cited WiFi experience management when asked how service providers can deliver a superior QoE.
Analytics Change Experience Provider Playbook
Gone are the days of just providing fast pipes for over-the-top players and cloud giants. Service providers can now control their roadmaps and ARPU-enhancing service launches better than ever before.
One of the most critical enablers for the shift to experience provider is multi-vendor network awareness and real-time data analytics that provide end-to-end visibility into the subscriber experience. With DZS Xperience, we offer customers comprehensive user behavior analytics, leveraging the most advanced AI and Machine-Learning (ML) capabilities. This is a powerful software tool that enables our customers to offer their subscribers new services based on user behavior, dramatically increasing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
Analytics not only change the game for service providers, they also improve customer service, increase revenue and can improve a company’s average Net Promoter Score (NPS). This means consumers are much more likely to recommend a company’s products or services to others based on their experiences, improving customer loyalty, a company’s brand reputation and bottom line.
DZS is laser-focused on helping service providers deliver the ultimate subscriber experience powered by hyper-fast, intelligent, adaptive and low latency internet connectivity across all devices with unprecedented network and data insights and remedies in real-time. We empower the subscriber to perform smart home device auto-discovery with services that allow for safe, worry-free browsing through parental controls and enhanced security. We continuously innovate by giving our customers the scale and visibility they need to support more devices and applications through superior WiFi experience management.
Key Takeaways
- Develop a better understanding of the amount of bandwidth needed to deliver a superior immersive in-home experience
- Choose a solution that can deliver end-to-end multi-vendor visibility for increased ARPU, reduced truck rolls and customer service calls
- WiFi experience management is key to delivering an enhanced QoE
To learn how DZS can help you deliver the ultimate immersive in-home experience, contact us at contactDZS@dzsi.com or 877-946-6320 Opt 1, or visit dzsi.com.