By merging Freescale Semiconductor’s communications chip expertise and leveraging it for the internet of things (IoT), NXP aims to stop users from cutting the cable by offering smart, easy-to-use home-wide IoT integration services that turn cable operators into super-internet-service-providers (super ISPs).
In an era where more and more people are cutting the cable—especially in neighborhoods that have alternative internet service providers (ISPs) such as fiber—cable operators are looking for ways to keep from becoming irrelevant. Young users are watching TV over the Internet, on services such as Hulu—because it’s archived instead of broadcast. Likewise movies are increasingly being streamed by Netflix for the same reason.
The key for cable companies to keep the younger audiences coming to them is offering them a free smart gateway that integrates all their IoT devices, plus offers them Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the legions of look-a-likes on whichever screen they wish to view it at the moment. These home gateways have also got to be smart, so that handling voice, data and video is all done seamlessly without interruption or compromise.
To simplify the cable engineers job of integrating all the IoT devices into their traditional TV-only modem, the company has added a software stack to Freescale’s chips that comes free with the QorIQ chips called the OpenWrt operating system and its associated application development kit.
