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The home office market is typically divided into three segments: Bring Work Home, Telecommuter, and the Home Business. When the penetration of these home office segments is cross-tabulated with U.S. household Internet subscription, it is interesting that online telecommuter household penetration has exceeded 10% and the number of online households that operate a full or part-time business out of their home is approaching 1 in 4. Both of these percentages are even higher for broadband households.

The home office market segment is a very attractive one for Multiple System Operators (MSOs). Home workers are upscale consumers, averaging higher incomes and education than other households. Home workers are also higher users of technology and devices--they are almost three times as likely to own a laptop PC, PDA, or home network than others. And any MSOs currently offering or planning to offer wireless services should take note--home office households are also about 20% more likely to own a mobile phone.

Unfortunately, home office communication services have changed little over several decades. Perhaps this is due to the perception that the home office type is so varied that only the lowest common denominator of communications services have the breadth of appeal to a beyond-niche market. While it is true that the type of home office worker is extremely diverse--ranging from the bed and breakfast owner to the corporate executive, from the creative consultant to the real estate agent--research indicates that a common set of communication needs do exist for the broadband home office user.

Topping the list of communications needs are enhanced call management, contact management solutions, and messaging solutions. Convenient conferencing services are also needed--54% of broadband home office users use the telephone to work on projects. Collaboration tools are needed--over half of broadband home office users develop documents for customers and over 1/3 discuss website content with others. In addition, the need to leverage the capabilities of all the various communication devices--from the primary business phone, to the PC, to the wireless phone and PDA--has become very important.

Fortunately, the broadband home office will soon enter the modern communications era--primarily due to the rollout of services based on Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP. SIP has been accepted by the communications industry as the standard that will be used to provide multimedia communication services over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.

It is possible to leverage SIP to provide the broadband home office user with an entirely new suite of multimedia communication services. For example, SIP-based software can provide continuous awareness of whether contacts are available and one-click access to e-mail, instant messaging, and voice or video calling. Contact information can be stored in the service provider’s network, allowing it to be accessed from and synchronized with the various communication devices connected to the Internet.

There are also solutions to the number one concern of working at home--“not having enough contact with co-workers”--with powerful SIP-based desktop video conferencing tools that also allow for personal recording of conversations for later playback. To further enable remote collaboration, new SIP-based software allows for instant messaging and chat, file and webpage sharing, and application sharing. The software also allows for the inclusion of mobile home office communications devices by the programmed screening of calls based on caller information or time of day/day of week and the capability to ring wireline and wireless communication devices simultaneously.

SIP enables communication services previously available only to the large business to enter the home office and may actually result in home office communication enhancements beyond that of many corporate offices. For example, an auto-attendant with personalized greetings can be combined with e-mail for personalized unified communications. An “auto-identification” feature can allow the user to assign any phone number to be automatically authenticated when retrieving their voice mail.

In fact, capabilities once limited to Key Systems and the SOHO-targeted KSU-less systems are now completely available to the home office. The services that made these systems popular included caller ID, call waiting display, shared and individual directories, call transfer and hold, one-touch access to other system users, call logging, and plug and play installation. SIP services provide these capabilities and go further by adding PC and Web services integration. And since anyone connected to the Internet can be a SIP system user, SIP services also remove the geographic boundaries that existed with these former systems--users can communicate over the Internet without incurring traditional long distance calling fees.

As you can see, the new home office communication services based on SIP are light-years ahead of POTS (plain old telephony services) and stand-alone communication devices. The broadband home office communication services rollout is driven by research indicating that the broadband home office user will pay for these new services--and will also pay more on the average than non-home office households. This is because the broadband home office user sees the utility in these services to enhance productivity, save time, and more effectively serve their customers.

Steve Brock is Director of VoIP and Multimedia Service Provider Marketing for Nortel Networks.

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