Deloitte: No TV revolution

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

According to Deloitte’s Canadian Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2013 report less than 1% of Canadians will “cut-the-cord” on their subscription TV services and more than 90% of user-generated passwords will be vulnerable to hacking in a matter of seconds.

Duncan Stewart, Director of Research, Deloitte Canada and co-author of TMT Predictions 2013 explains about the passwords. “A machine running readily available virtualization software and high-powered graphics processing units can crack any eight-character password in about five hours,” he said.

Deloitte also predicts that almost all Canadian households currently paying for TV subscriptions will continue to subscribe. Despite the perceived popularity of pure plays, the OTT market will continue to be controlled by existing players.

Other Deloitte predictions include:

The next generation of high definition (HD) TV sets — 4K — will be available in Canadian stores, offering four times higher resolution than the current highest standard HD TV. But there will be no 4K broadcasts in 2013, so consumers will not have much to watch on their expensive ($15,000 – $25,000) sets.

The demand for wireless bandwidth continues to grow causing increased spectrum exhaustion, especially in Canada’s urban areas — leading mainly to slower speeds, but sometimes an inability to access networks or dropped calls or data sessions.