Time Warner Cable's IntelligentHome service will be availble to the majority of its footprint following deployments in Ohio and Wisconsin this month and in New York City this fall.
TWC launched the home security/automation service in 2011 in upstate New York and Hudson Valley, N.Y.; Southern California, and North Carolina, followed by more recent rollouts in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio, Texas; Kansas City; Eastern Carolina; Greensboro, S.C.; and the remainder of its New England systems. Following the recent launch in Dallas, TWC estimated in May that IntelligentHome was available to about 60% of its footprint.
When New York City is factored in this fall, the service will reach about 90% of TWC’s footprint, a spokeswoman said. The MSO should near 100% of its service area by the end of 2013 as IntelligentHome is introduced in left over pockets in Texas and other states. TWC’s network passes more than 29.3 million homes.
TWC’s IntelligentHome service starts at $33.99 per month for a package that includes a touchscreen, two wireless door/window sensors, a wireless motion detector, a yard sign and window decals. The MSO also offers a range other components sold on an a la carte basis, including cameras, smoke detectors, key fobs, appliance and lighting adapters and carbon monoxide detectors. Customers can access the service remotely via PCs and a mobile app.
TWC is expanding availability of the service as competition in the fragmented sector heats up. Several major U.S. service providers, including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox Communications, have all developed and deployed home security and automation products.
They all have an opportunity to widen and pursue a multibillion-dollar, high-margin market. In a recent report, ISI Group estimated that only 20% of U.S. homes currently use a home security service, noting that five core companies represent just 38% of the home security sector, led by ADT’s 28% share. The overall home security market has been growing at about 1% per year, according to ISI
ISI’s competitive analysis of the pursuit of this market by Comcast, TWC, AT&T and Verizon found that their combined share could be worth about $3.5 billion, assuming that penetration scales to 5% of an operator’s footprint over a five-year period.
