According to IDC's recent study "Australia Broadband Market Sizing and Forecast, 2004-2009: Time to Stuff the Pipes" the broadband market is entering a land-grab phase where all Broadband Service Providers (BSPs) are sharpening their offers, cranking up dial-up migration plans and churning out commercial bundles. While the market is entering this very tactical phase, IDC is exploring strategic paths and new market trends occurring in the background, which could have significant impact on the broadband market in the next three years.

IDC predicts that at the end of 2005, 1 out of 3 Internet access users will be connecting using broadband, and this ratio becomes 1 dial-up to 1 broadband subscribers in 2007. Broadband will finally surpass dial-up in 2009 with about two third of broadband connections and one third of dial-up.

By 2009, IDC estimates that household broadband penetration in 2005 will reach 27% and half of all Australian households will have broadband by 2009. IDC forecasts that the number of broadband subscribers will grow from 1.6 million subscribers in 2004 to almost 5 million subscribers in 2009 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25%. IDC believes that IPTV, HDTV and set-top boxes will become the digital media outlets and this will force BSPs to make strategic decisions around content, to deliver video services such as IPTV in order to maintain average revenue per user (ARPU). This consumer bundle of broadband, voice and video services is now commonly called "triple play".

"BSPs and Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers will compete for the same digital home market to fence off declining ARPU and commoditisation of devices respectively. Devices, content and distribution will be intertwined by both BSPs and CE manufacturers, a few examples of emerging devices and service integration are the combination of the iPod + iTunes, BSPs and home networking and IPTV set top boxes with DVR and Video on Demand (VoD) capabilities" said Landry Fevre, IDC Research Director for Telecommunications and Consumer Digital Markets.

Consumer bundles are the first step for addressing the looming challenge. A holistic view with a triple or even quadruple play (triple play + mobile) message is likely to be a winning strategy for BSPs. BSPs need also to ensure that they embrace a back-office service layer topology with a next generation networks strategy allowing services to be integrated, activated, provided and billed in a seamless manner.