New developments in the Home Phoneline Networking (HomePNA) technology will give the market a boost, and help it become a viable player in deployment of home video networks. Migration is underway from the lower-speed HomePNA 2 to HomePNA 3, and worldwide shipments for HomePNA 3 will exceed 200 per cent growth in 2007, In-Stat the the high-tech market research firm says. "In the near term, we see this technology primarily competing in the North American market, with pockets of opportunity evolving internationally. Some service providers fully expect to use multiple technologies and mediums that will co-exist in their in-home deployments, as long as they meet the operators’ service quality and cost objectives. The difficulty comes in measuring the penetration rates as one must separate the hype from reality," it says. "As a result, we drove our forecast using a "quad-vector" approach utilizing our annual consumer survey research, along with realistic expectations by semiconductor vendors, equipment vendors and service providers." The In-Stat report says that the underlying drivers for residential entertainment video distribution networking are the whole-home DVR and efforts to avoid installing new cabling. "The number of whole-home DVR installations is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of over 100 per cent from 2006 to 2008. Most service operators are keeping their options open, and optimally want their services to run over at least two mediums-powerline and coax, or phoneline and coax," it says.

Nextgen handsets

On another front, namely mobile handsets, next-generation, richly featured handsets capable of both voice and high-speed data are still at the early stage of adoption, but are starting to win mindshare and regular usage among high-usage US business travelers, a separate study by In-Stat says.

The survey says business travelers spending $300 per month or more on wireless, and business travelers on the road 30 per cent of the time, are beginning to take to the new handsets, the high-tech market research firm says. "For instance, they carry second mobile devices more often and use their advanced features more extensively than do business travelers in general," the high-tech market-research firm says.

"And their use of SmartPhones as the primary device of the two they carry is already starting to rival BlackBerry."

"Heavy business mobile users are consuming about a third of their total airtime via their secondary handsets. Challenges for next-generation mobile phone suppliers include market awareness, end-user resistance to change, and making the right technical design tradeoffs," it says.

India, whose high economic growth is driven mostly by the private sector, will witness a rise in the number of billionaires as compared to China in 2006, an official with the Forbes Asian Rich List said here on Thursday.

"This year there were 15 billionaire in China but last year in India, we had 20 billionaire," Contributing Editor of Forbes, Mr Justin Doebele, told PTI here on the sidelines of the release of the Forbes’ 2006 China Rich List.

"So there are more billionaires in India than in China," he said without divulging the details of the India Rich List which will be published later this month.

"We expect the numbers to go up as the markets in India have done pretty well this year," Mr Doebele said noting that the Forbes Rich List in India will be mostly based on public listing.

He noted that India had better accounting systems than China, more transparent markets and liquidity. "You can trust the numbers in India, again relative to China."

Tine Wee, Executive Director of Forbes Asia, said that Forbes will release the India Rich List, the third annual list, on November 27. In China, a 37-year-old appliance merchant Wong Kwong-yu, founder of Gome Appliances, topped the list of richest business people released by Forbes.