Joe Chow

With the holidays behind us, consumers have added even more connected devices to their homes. Smart assistants, smart plugs, security cameras and doorbells are becoming some popular additions to our connected home. This continual increase in devices accumulated with most of us still working and schooling from home has shown how important connectivity is to our homes. If you did not believe that Wi-Fi and internet connectivity was a new entry in Maslow’s hierarchy at the physiological needs level (i.e., air and water) before the pandemic hit, then you probably believe it now. As we look forward to 2021 and the potential for a return to pre-pandemic normal in the second half of the year, we still see a lot of the acceleration of digital services staying with us through 2021 and accelerating into 2022. Here are some of the most important home network trends to follow.

随着假期的结束，消费者们却在家里安装了更多的联网设备。智能助理、智能插头、安全摄像头和门铃正成为我们互联家庭的大众化配置。因为我们中的大多数人仍然必须在家工作和上学，而设备的不断增加表明了网络连接在家里的重要性。如果在疫情大爆发之前你还不相信Wi-Fi和互联网是马斯洛生理需求层次（即空气和水）的一个新要素，那么你现在可能已经相信了。在我们展望2021年发展和下半年恢复疫情前正常水平的可能性之际，我们依旧看到，数字化服务的加速将伴随我们度过2021年，并加速进入2022年。以下是一些最重要的家庭网络趋势。

Wi-Fi reliability and performance

Wi-Fi的可靠性和性能

Consumers are now not satisfied to just connect with poor performance in many rooms of their home. With the pandemic turning all our rooms into work and school places, we now see the importance of high-performance Wi-Fi to every part of our homes. With the arrival of Wi-Fi 6 technology and its 15-35% boost in overall home performance over previous Wi-Fi 5 solutions, we saw a sharp growth in the roll out of more Wi-Fi 6 access points from service providers in 2021. While legacy client devices prevail and don’t fully unleash the 4x performance improvement of Wi-Fi 6 – the importance of Wi-Fi 6 to create a new Wi-Fi foundation for the home cannot be overstated. New Wi-Fi 6 multi access point meshing solutions coupled with Wi-Fi management software solutions will also become the norm as even the smaller homes improve performance with Wi-Fi extender solutions. Reliability of these solutions needs to be controlled by cloud and consumer app-based solutions that self-heal where possible and present both the service provider support representative and the consumer the ability to solve remaining problems.

消费者现在仅仅不满足于家中的许多房间设备连接的性能低下。随着疫情大爆发，我们所有的房间都变成了工作和学校的场所，看到了高性能Wi-Fi对我们家庭每个部分连接的重要性。Wi-Fi 6技术在家庭应用的整体性能比之前的Wi-Fi 5解决方案提高了15-35%，同时我们看到2021年服务提供商推出急剧增长的更多Wi-Fi 6接入点。当传统的客户端设备占主导地位，没有完全释放Wi-Fi 6的4x性能改进时，Wi-Fi 6为家庭创造一个新的Wi-Fi基础的重要性就不能过分夸大。新的Wi-Fi 6多接入点网格化解决方案与Wi-Fi管理软件解决方案相结合也将成为常态，因为即使是较小的家庭也可以通过Wi-Fi扩展解决方案提高性能。这些解决方案的可靠性需要由基于云和消费者应用程序的解决方案来控制，并可以在可能的情况下自我修复和向服务提供商支持代表与消费者提供解决剩余问题的能力。

Capacity improvements on the networks to the home

家庭网络的带宽改进

We have seen more than a 50% increase in upstream traffic in the last 9 months as we work, school and live from home more. The use of video conferencing and shared cloud storage has shown how improved upstream and downstream capacity can improve our ability to compete and live in this accelerated digital economy. We expect to see more additional capacity added to DOCSIS upstream in 2021 with more use of the 204MHz capability we have in many of the solutions we have shipped. We also see an increased momentum to shift from 1Gbps GPON solutions to 10Gbps XGS-PON to be prepared for future services.

在过去的9个月里，我们看到上行流量增加了50%以上，因为我们在家工作、上学和生活的时间越来越多。视频会议和共享云存储的使用表明，提高上下行带宽可以提高我们在这个加速发展的数字经济中的竞争能力和生存能力。我们预计2021年DOCSIS上行将增加更多的带宽，更多地利用我们在许多已发布的解决方案中拥有的204MHz带宽。我们还看到，从1Gbps GPON解决方案向10Gbps XGS-PON转变的势头正在增强，以便为未来的服务做好准备。

Service providers moving to be the super aggregator of home services

服务提供商正在成为家庭服务的超级集成商

Aggregated Streaming Services

聚合流服务

This past year saw ever more consumption of OTT video streaming services, with lock-down binge viewing and movies going straight to streaming. With ever-more OTT service coming online, the need to aggregate these services and simplify the consumer experience grows. While service providers have integrated streaming services with their own Pay TV offerings for a while, there will be increased focus on addressing the broadband only customer with operator-supplied streamers. A move that will accelerate the shift by cable operators from QAM-based video delivery to all IP-video services in the home.

在过去的一年里，OTT视频流服务的消费量越来越大，限制了狂看片和电影直接进入流媒体。随着越来越多的OTT服务上线，整合这些服务并简化消费者体验的需求也在增长。虽然服务提供商在一段时间内已经将流媒体服务与自己的付费电视产品相结合，但未来将越来越关注解决只使用运营商提供的流媒体用户的宽带问题。此举将加速有线电视运营商从基于QAM的视频传输向所有家庭IP视频服务的转变。

Smart Assistants

智能助手

With smart assistants maturing to a point where they can now be added as a S/W integration into devices we see an acceleration of multiple assistants co-existing in a single device in the home. Solutions like the Voice Interoperability Initiative (VII) are breaking down the technical and user interface barriers to allow a service provider smart assistant to work cohesively with all the commercially available ones. With consumers also worried about their privacy with smart assistants there will be increased focus and innovation to address this, helping consumers get comfortable and drive further adoption of digital assistants. 

随着智能助理的不断成熟，它们现在可以作为软件集成添加到设备中，我们看到多个助理在家庭单个设备中共存的速度在加快。像语音互操作性倡议（VII）这样的解决方案正在打破技术和用户界面的障碍，使服务提供商的智能助理能够与所有商用的智能助理协同工作。由于消费者也担心智能助理的隐私问题，因此解决这一问题的重点和创新将增加，以帮助消费者获得舒适感，并推动数字助理的进一步被采用。

IoT Services

IOT服务

With the momentum of the Connected Home over IP group (CHIP) and their work we expect to see this effort result in the ability for a single hub in the home to create IP connection for all IoT services and applications. This will remove some of the fragmentation and deployment issues of smart home solutions and simplify the user experience. It also provides a unique opportunity for the service providers to provide the home IoT aggregation function for all home services.

随着IP连接家庭组（芯片）的发展势头，我们预计这项工作将使家庭中的单个集线器能够为所有物联网服务和应用程序创建IP连接。这将消除智能家居解决方案的一些碎片化和部署问题，并简化用户体验。它还为服务提供商提供了一个独特的机会，为所有家庭服务提供家庭物联网聚合功能。

New Home Solution Services

新的家居解决方案服务

Service providers have long waited for the opportunity to be able to push new services to the devices they have invested in and deployed to consumer homes. Next year will see the emergence of platforms capable of deploying new services from the cloud such as IoT, security, smart assistants and low latency on an on-demand basis in a standardized, easy to deploy framework. This will drive innovation and revenue growth opportunities for service providers.

服务提供商一直在等待机会，以便能够将新服务推送到他们投资的设备上，并部署到消费者家庭中。明年将出现能够在标准化的、易于部署的框架内按需部署物联网、安全、智能助理和低延迟等云服务的平台。这将推动服务提供商的创新和收入增长的机会。

Whole home and every room media consumption will also normalize on the service provider platforms with every room capable of accessing all media from audio services to video services with simple device additions to each room providing a whole home and cross home experience.

整个家庭和每个房间的媒体消费也将在服务提供商平台上标准化，只要添加了简单设备，每个房间都能够访问从音频服务到视频服务的所有媒体，提供了整个家庭和跨家庭的体验。

Virtual doctor visits, telemedicine and aging in place are three of the areas that have seen huge acceleration in investment as we move towards more digital and technology solutions for the home versus having to traveling to the doctor’s office during a pandemic. 

虚拟医生就诊、远程医疗和就地老龄化是投资大幅加速的三个领域，与疫情期间必须前往医生办公室相比，我们正在为家庭提供更多的数字和技术解决方案。

Moving towards more reliable deterministic and low latency services

向更可靠的确定性和低延迟服务迈进

It would have been hard to miss the announcements this year on the allocation of 6GHz spectrum to unlicensed use. With the United States and other countries allocating as much as 1.2GHz of spectrum unlocking 66Gbps of wireless potential for use in the home. With the creation of the Wi-Fi 6E and first products available to use this newly approved spectrum, we will see new products in 2021 that will use this huge capacity of spectrum for an array of applications. We expect Wi-Fi 6E to hit its stride more in the 2022 and 2023 timeframe as the spectrum is released around the globe and clients and applications start to arrive.

今年将6GHz频谱分配给未经许可使用的公告很难错过。美国和其他国家分配了高达1.2GHz的频谱，从而释放了66Gbps的无线应用潜力。随着Wi-Fi 6E的诞生和第一批使用这种新批准的频谱的产品的问世，我们将在2021年看到新的产品，这些产品将在一系列应用中使用这种巨大的频谱带宽。我们预计Wi-Fi 6E将在2022年和2023年实现更大的发展，因为它的频谱将在全球范围内发布，客户端和应用程序也将陆续推出。

With this new 6GHz spectrum also comes determinism of performance on Wi-Fi for the first time – matching that of a wired connection. Co-incidentally, for those on DOCSIS networks, the addition of low latency DOCSIS support aligns with this new Wi-Fi 6E capability to drive a deterministic and low latency service to the home. We expect to see new revenue generating use cases emerge on this ultra-low latency determinism from “no excuses best latency gaming” to providing the underpinning platform for latency intolerant AR and VR experiences. Knowing your latency score on your network will become as important as the bandwidth from your service provider.

随着这一新的6GHz频谱的出现，Wi-Fi的性能也首次出现了决定性的变化——与有线连接相匹配。顺便说一句，对于那些在DOCSIS网络上的人来说，低延迟DOCSIS支持的增加与新的Wi-Fi 6E功能相结合，将为家庭带来确定性和低延迟服务。我们期望看到在这种超低延迟决定论上出现新的创收用例，从“没有借口的最佳延迟游戏”到为无法忍受延迟的AR和VR体验提供基础平台。了解您在网络上的延迟分值将变得与从您的服务提供商获得的带宽一样重要。