responsibility , judging broadband experience on the performance of their applications on their devices . Service providers are now supplying the residential broadband CPE as part of their overall offering to the customer . While investment in the home network may have previously been deemed a costly expense rather than a key area of investment , providers had seen a fierce rise in customer dissatisfaction with the home network . Our recent The future Telco – Connected Home 2021 Survey report , in partnership with Omdia , found that WiFi related calls were responsible for 60 % of all customer service calls . With limited visibility of customer home networks , expenditure for providers may arise through costly engineer call outs or needless CPE replacements , which is why greater home network investment is critical . CommScope : When people were ordered to work and learn from home , a number of things related to CPEs did change . In the industry , we are seeing a massive investment in fibreto-the-home as more governments , employers and the general population have come to realise that broadband is truly an essential utility . According to a survey we conducted of more than 2000 of our global employees , almost 20 % of them did not believe their ISP speeds were adequate for working from home . With more people working and learning from home , there is also an acceleration to deploy more WiFi 6 CPEs in the home to improve WiFi connectivity and relieve congestion . We saw it with our employees as well . In the survey we conducted , more than 30 % of them were using WiFi extenders to deliver improved coverage and performance in their home . The last trend we saw during the lockdown was that streaming video has become the ‘ must-have ’ service for in-home entertainment . Freesat : Without doubt , lockdown has driven the global CPE industry , as people have invested in their home office environment . From new PC ’ s and laptops to printers , monitors , routers and WiFi extenders , demand has increased across the sector . At Freesat , we ’ ve seen a rise in VoD usage across our base , which would have placed increased strain on home networks across the UK . Generally we have seen broadband providers respond to this increase in demand by offering improved routers and WiFi extenders . Over lockdown , we have also seen strong demand for our new range of 4K-ready set-top boxes , which quickly gained significant market share and have grown rapidly as a share of our overall base . Plume : The extended periods of lockdown and WFH have led to significantly more load placed upon CPE across the day . CPEs are having to deal with more devices , active more hours , and requiring more throughput . For example , the average number of active hours for computers during weekdays increased from 2.4 hours before Covid , to 5.4 hours following the initial lockdowns in April of 2020 . Similarly , the load on CPE , measured as the volume of download traffic in a given week was up 69 % immediately following the initial lockdowns . As things have opened up , this has moderated some , but weekly loads on CPE are still up 40 % compared to pre COVID levels as of July 2021 . SoftAtHome : From March 2020 , the lockdowns induced by the Covid pandemic put huge strain on home networks . There are many ways to slice and dice the data and depending on how you look at it , SoftAtHome analysis saw rises of 25 % to over 100 %. Much has been written and analysed , but in the end , both the Internet itself and the home networks managed to carry the extra load . The resilience of IP networks successfully passed this test . Work From Home has , however , brought some urgent needs to the forefront . CPE must go further in personalising how we prioritise traffic .
A work conference should not be affected by a streaming session , even less so by a file download . Gaming should in turn be
prioritised above downloading , but not above a phone call . There are some generic rules to implement as well as allowing for households to fine-tune their network to best serve their particular needs . Technicolor Connected Home : Extended periods of lockdown and work-from-home orders have created a strong demand for operators to deliver high bandwidth and low latency services . Some operators have accelerated transformation initiatives through investments in Fibre and DOCSIS CPEs . There has also been more interest in hybrid customer premises equipment ( CPE ) to integrate fixed wireless access with traditional DSL , for example to provide connectivity in difficult to reach areas . On the whole , shelterin-place orders resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic spurred innovation in the network service provider community . With the availability of WiFi 6 , some operators have responded by upgrading devices or switching to WiFi 6 in order to improve the connectivity for subscribers ’ homes . Lockdowns have also increased the demand for a greater variety of services with more consumers requiring services that support working from home . The need for more services , capabilities , greater security , and different types of content has created higher demand for more open devices . As a result , this also highlights the weakness of proprietary devices that serve a single function .
How has voice control evolved in CPE and what role do you see it playing in the future ? Allot : Voice control devices , like other IoT devices with vulnerabilities to cyber threats are easy targets for hackers and attacks . However , strong cybersecurity protection built into the residential router can make it the perfect element to protect the home network and its connected devices , including voice control devices . Broadband Forum :
Voice control in CPE
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