When it comes to home entertainment, The Multimedia over Coax Alliance, or “MoCA,” is a name to be reckoned with. The company is considered to be the universal standard for home entertainment networking. In the home entertainment arena, MoCA happens to be the only provider that serves all three pay TV segments – cable, satellite and IPTV (News - Alert). The current MoCA specification can support multiple streams of HD video, deliver up 175 Mbps net throughputs and offer an unparalleled user experience via parameterized quality of service, or “PQoS.”

Recently MoCA took up a survey on coaxial infrastructure in homes. The study was conducted in four European countries – UK, France, Netherlands and Poland.

There are four reasons why the company had chosen these four countries for conducting the survey – their competitive pay-TV environments, increasing penetration of HDTVs and DVRs, number of TVs per household and the high daily TV viewing hours.

It was an online survey, which was carried out by IMS Research in February 2010. The sample size was statistically significant at 95 percent confidence level.

The company has good reason to be happy with the findings of the study – it showed that there is a significant addressable market for coaxial cable-based home networking in all the said countries.

Below is a brief summary of the result:

• United Kingdom: 56 per cent of respondents have two or more coaxial outlets and  27 per cent have three or more
• France: 55 per cent of respondents have two or more coaxial outlets and 25 per cent have three or more
• Poland: 71 per cent of respondents have two or more coaxial outlets and 36 per cent have three or more
• Netherlands: 45 per cent of respondents have two or more coaxial outlets and 15 per cent have three or more

So far as the United Kingdom and France were concerned, results were quite similar.  While in UK, 56 percent respondents stated that they had two or more coaxial outlets in their home, In France the number stood at a close 55 percent. More than a quarter of respondents in both countries however indicated they have three or more.

Poland came out with the most exciting survey results. In Poland, 71 per cent of respondents stated that they have two or more coaxial outlets and 36 per cent having three or more.

The Netherlands recorded 45 per cent of households as having two or more outlets and 15 per cent having three or more.

“This survey helps us gain an understanding of the potential for MoCA,” said Charles Cerino, president of MoCA. “The high percentage of homes having two or more coaxial outlets in these countries means that there is a significant addressable market opportunity for service providers wanting to offer advanced high bandwidth services with high reliability and without adding any new wires.”

Stephen Froehlich, senior analyst, Consumer Electronics at IMS Research oversaw the research and said that the picture we get in the countries surveyed is that there are more outlets per home than had been presumed by the industry and that many consumers are willing to add extra coax drops as needed to enable a better TV experience throughout their home.

While the study highlights on some interesting facts, it should be noted that, these results cannot be extrapolated across other parts of Europe. Additional research is also needed. MoCA expressed its willingness to work with operators in Europe that may be interested in replicating this study in their footprint.