Lesley Kirchman, Director of Marketing of Actiontec, opened her house to Viodi’s Creative Vado camcorder showing us how she has turned her 60 year old home into a domicile of the future with things like surveillance cameras, a remote-controlled thermostat and an electronic lock using Z-Wave technology. From a consumer point of view, control of these devices may be via handheld units, wall plate switches, via web browser (e.g. PC or cell phone) and, at some point, via the television. 

She explains how the types of things implemented at her house represent an opportunity [Multimedia Intelligence's latest report indicates that residential is a growing market for things like home surveillance] for the independent telco.  One of the things that make Actiontec’s approach attractive to the telco is that the home automation software is built into the router, eliminating the need for separate external control devices. The telco can offer this service to their customers as a hosted application. The telco’s marginal costs for adding this service are minimal and the service itself can potentially be a revenue producer or part of a stickier broadband bundle.