New opportunities as homes become smart lifespaces

In 2020 the Future of Work changed irrevocably when millions of people adopted homeworking to keep the global economy operating. Simultaneously, households became more dependent on networks for entertainment, to remain connected with loved ones, and for vital services such as shopping, healthcare and education. Even our buildings are becoming smarter, with households forecast to adopt 8 billion digital voice assistants by 2024 (Statista). As the household evolves into a smart lifespace where people live, work and play, there’s huge potential for CSPs to build new added value.

“Over the past year, no area has undergone more rapid transformation than the way we work.” Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft.

Reshaping the future of work

According to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, in mid-2020 42% of the US workforce was working from home full time, 33% were not working and 26% of key workers continued to work on business premises. The US Census Bureau noted that workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher were more than three times as likely to be working at home than those with only a high school education or GED (61.7% compared to 19.1%). This suggests that the most valuable knowledge workers are those most likely to work from home.

But will this market persist post-Covid?

Prior to the crisis many enterprises had already begun redesigning their offices to be more connected and more collaborative, in order to attract Generation Z workers, while also hiring workers on a project basis to increase the flexibility of their workforce. Even before the crisis younger workers were questioning traditional working patterns. Now that many people have tried and enjoyed homeworking, even more say they’d rather change jobs than commute full time - a phenomenon dubbed ‘The Great Resignation’.

“In this day and age, everyone wants the kind of workplace where they feel like they matter, and leaders who ask for their opinions...This [emphasis on corporate culture] kept coming up in a way that didn’t ring true. It was almost like a euphemism for ‘I want you back, I don’t want you at home. I don’t trust you.’ That’s how workers are interpreting it.” Kimberly Merriman, professor of management at the Manning School of Business at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

New modes of working are booming

The Gig Economy was born largely out of the 2008/9 financial crisis. While it’s been criticised for exposing people to poor working practices, it and other new forms of work such as the Social Economy, Influencer Economy and microretailing are increasingly relied upon by many workers. In 2020 the Gig Economy experienced 33% growth in the US and is expanding faster than the rest of the US economy. Worldwide, there are now about 1.1 billion Gig workers, and 2 million US workers began participating in the Gig Economy in 2020. It’s estimated that over a third of US workers (35%) now work in this way at least part of the time. All these new modes of work involve people being connected to opportunities via digital platforms and have profound implications for ICT services provided to the household.

Key enabling infrastructure is now in place

Both the global telecoms market and enterprise IT departments kept workers connected in 2020-21, removing two of the main barriers to homeworking in the process - lack of equipment and concerns about whether it is efficient. The big winners here were hardware suppliers, as well as conferencing vendors, collaboration tool vendors, and security vendors. Nevertheless, from a telecoms perspective, customers learnt an important lesson about the value of a quality network: when your livelihood, education and social support systems depend on your network experience, you quickly recognize the value of both quality of experience (QoE) and customer support. However, there’s still more to be done to dimension the household as a future workplace. The Covid crisis exposed, for example, the inadequate asymmetrical design of suburban broadband, as households are no longer just consumers of internet services but increasingly need to upload files to corporate and cloud systems, or participate in video conferences, for example.

Households are embracing more digital services

In addition to the household become a workspace, households are also changing the way they live and play by embracing their use of digital services. Gaming was one of the big winners from the Covid crisis with Verizon, for example, reporting a 75% increase in gaming traffic during peak hours compared to a 12% increase in digital video traffic and 20% in web traffic. Streamlabs data revealed that platforms such as Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming all experienced an average 20% growth surge, driven largely by Generation Y and Z activity. Network-based gaming is highly QoS sensitive, but even for downloaded games run on consoles, gamers increasingly want to interact with others while gaming. This makes gaming sessions far more complex to support than simple video streaming, for example. Gamers are also vulnerable to malware, with Cisco-Talos finding cyberattacks on gamers had risen 340% during the Covid crisis. Since many gamers are very young and digitally naive, protecting their online experience is essential for both them and the connected household. The Covid crisis also stimulated rapid adoption of digital healthcare, thereby changing people’s perceptions of telemedicine and remote healthcare. In August 2020, 68% of people surveyed by the UK’s Office of National Statistics, for example, said they would be ‘comfortable’ or ‘very comfortable’ attending an online healthcare appointment. The use of connected services for healthcare purposes creates demand for increased security & privacy, digital identity, videoconferencing, and higher QoS. Households continue to adopt more smart objects with Omdia forecasting that this market will grow 24.1% between 2020 and 2025. Such devices are prone to disconnecting and are increasingly the target for cyberhackers. This creates new opportunities for CSPs to perform remote diagnostics, fix faults, secure the connected household and manage the lifecycle of smart objects.

The changing nature of the household

CSPs had recognized prior to Covid-19 the opportunity to provide connected household services, including quality network provision with third-party software such as network-based security, WiFi optimization and parental & business controls. Industry analysts, Omnisperience call this new type of offering ‘Connected Customer Assurance and Protection Services’ (CCAPS). CCAPS is a customer-centric concept that takes CSPs beyond the home gateway deeper into the home network, to optimize and protect all the devices and people connected to it. Network service providers are developing CCAPS by bundling key technology from partners with their own capabilities to enable rapid market entry. Omnisperience has identified this type of service as one of the most promising for short-term revenue growth and expects 80% of large CSPs to have rolled out a basic offering by 2023. CCAPS will extend over time to incorporate cyberprotection, CPE controls, security & management of the smart home, ID protection & verification, parental controls, WiFi optimization, fault diagnosis and healing, and even insurance. Not only do CCAPS offer valuable new revenue streams to CSPs but importantly they deliver

digital confidence and trust. Telefonica was one of the first CSPs to rollout this type of service when it launched Movistar Secure Connection service (Conexión Segura) in November 2018, partnering with Allot and McAfee to serve households, homeworkers, and small businesses. It had fast initial take-up and double-digit growth in the consumer sector thereafter, tripling the number of SMEs using the service in 2020. In the last three years CSPs of all sizes have launched CCAPS in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

CCAPS at work

AT&T now offers a range of services to protect households and homeworkers. Smart Home Manager is a free application that enables customers to find and change their Wi-Fi network name and password, create names for each device connected to their network and set up network controls to manage screen time, set time limits and apply content filters and add guest devices. AT&T Digital Life Home is a $39.99 physical security solution that provides cameras, door controls and an easy-to-use app with installation provided as part of the service. AT&T Remote Workforce Solutions support remote workforces, securing their devices (both personal and professional), their connection to the Internet as well as to on-premise or cloud applications. Virgin Media (UK) is working with Plume to deliver WiFi Plus which combines new features on Virgin Media’s Hub 3 and Hub 4 routers, as well as Plume’s Intelligent WiFi Pods, to create a mesh network that boosts WiFi reach, speed and reliability within the home by intelligently optimizing and prioritizing device connections. Virgin Media plans to roll-out additional smart home features in 2021-22 and its parent company Liberty Global is looking to expand the service in Europe. Liberty Global invested in Plume – which also provides AI-powered cybersecurity, advanced guest access and parental controls – in 2014 through its investment arm Liberty Global Ventures. Virgin is now making Plume’s Homepass available in the UK in areas it doesn’t currently serve with network connectivity, at an annual charge of £99. Yoigo (part of Grupo Masmovil) has launched an ID protection service which incorporates insurance against personal data losses. The service - Cybersecurity x10 – is based on technology from Swedish firm Eyeonid. It allows customers to monitor telephone numbers, email accounts, their ID and debit and credit cards to protect them from ID theft. The new Yoigo service not only provides comprehensive protection against ID theft, but includes insurance from Caser to protect against damages, losses and liabilities. The service monitors up to 10 accounts per customer, which could be individual telephone numbers, email accounts, IDs, credit or debit cards. It’s offered free of charge for the first month and charged at EUR3 per month thereafter.

The ability to secure and ensure an end-to-end network experience is CSPs’ biggest USP in providing CCAPS. Rival vendors can monitor and secure LANs or applications, but cannot put all the pieces together into a holistic network experience and resolve problems in the way CSPs can by using their investments in analytics, diagnostics and support.