Parks Associates predicts surge in residential gateway deployments

The number of residential gateways deployed by broadband providers will surge over the next five years, according to Parks Associates.

To coincide with the launch of the World Broadband Forum, the international research firm released a new study that claimed internet service providers will roll out 39 million "high-end, feature-rich residential gateways" by the end of the year.

Of these, more than 20 million are set to be installed in western Europe alone.

Over the coming years, this number is expected to increase significantly, with 120 million residential gateways and routers set to be deployed worldwide by 2017.

In five years' time, Parks Associates claimed operators will be rolling out more than 65 million high-end gateways, with over 27 million of these to be within the western European market.

Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates, said: "Western Europe is an especially important market, given the high levels of broadband adoption and growing consumer demand for value-added services."

Parks Associates president Stuart Sikes noted that more than half of pay TV households in western Europe have access to a 'TV Everywhere' service.

The value proposition of these and other services can be increased by deploying gateways, which simplify the connection and management of internet-enabled devices, he explained.