According to a new Australian study, the ‘at home’ broadband market is set to reach $1.3 billion in access revenues by the end of 2005, growing by 36% over 2004. Industry revenues are forecast to reach $2.5 billion by 2010.

The study from research group, Frost & Sullivan Australia, defines the ‘at home’ broadband market to include all broadband access that connects to a household residency. This includes households purchasing broadband, as well as broadband purchased by a business for small home offices. Frost & Sullivan estimates that by the end of 2005, 69% of households will be online with 35% using a broadband connection. This equates to a total of 1.9 million ‘at home’ broadband connections.

The majority (83%) of ‘at home’ broadband products are purchased by households, with the remaining 17% purchased by a business with an ABN.

“The rise of broadband households represents a growing audience for digital media. Applications that are currently being used in an illegal or ad-hoc way represent an unmet demand for emerging content services”, says Chia Seiler, telecommunications analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

“Although meeting these needs presents challenges, ultimately addressing this audience will allow the industry to offset declining access revenues through the provision of value added services,” says Seiler.

The report looks closely at the key applications that are driving broadband adoption, including VoIP, personal productivity, teleworking, internet connectivity for the digital home, online gaming and interactive entertainment.

Frost & Sullivan has identified that the key elements of the digital home are consumer digital devices, digital TV, Pay TV, home media centres, and gaming consoles. The report outlines the level of current and expected penetration across all of these technologies.

IPTV is not anticipated to have a major impact on the Australian market prior to 2010, although some IPTV products such as video on demand services, foreign language and niche content services are expected to emerge as early as 2006.

The ‘at home’ broadband market study includes forecasts for revenues and subscribers between 2003-2010. Broadband users are segmented into Light Users, Premium Users, Capacity Users, and Power Users, with relative share given for 2005 and forecasts to 2007. The broadband access segments measured are xDSL, Cable, FTTx, Fixed Wireless, and Satellite, with penetration and growth forecasts given for the period 2003-2010.