While Scientific-Atlanta, Motorola, Pioneer and Pace each do their share of development in offering state-of-the-art features and services in their set-top box (STB) offerings, they are pressed to keep their costs down in efforts to keep prices low, according to market research firm ABI.

Unfortunately, the cost of components and manufacturing is not decreasing at the same speed as the increasing expectation levels of the cable MSOs (multiple service operators). This leaves very little room for the STB vendors to build new differentiators into their offerings; in turn, the MSOs are not willing to increase their capital expenditures in order to offer such features as HD, DVR and broadband connectivity through the STB they deploy. According to technology research firm ABI, the burden lies on the STB vendors and component manufacturers to find solutions while keeping total costs down.

Find out more about the ABI study — including a graph showing a five-year projection of worldwide STB shipments — in the summary report published at LinuxDevices.com's sister site, DeviceForge.com.

Read summary report

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