Aging in Place Business Case for Cable Operators

The United States elder population (65+ years of age) is expected to double from 45M in 2017 to 95M by 2060. AARP reports that 90% of elders would like to age at home. This is in part due to comfort found in the familiar spaces and expenses saved by not paying for alternative care facilities. Hence the concept of aging in place (AIP) stems from wanting to stay in a familial space that is equipped with the need to live there as long as possible. Each elder may require different levels of care as they age and as their health needs change. AIP is an opportunity for those individuals to receive their care at home with the help of others and burgeoning technology support.

AIP addresses not just the needs of the elders directly involved, but also their families, caregivers, providers, and payors. There is a large market of stakeholders who have a hand in what home life will look like for the elder. Since there are many types of players and stakeholders in the aging space, AIP has inherently become fragmented. We see companies solely focusing on caregiving, security, healthcare, etc. Cable operators have a chance to unify these solutions

Many operators already have existing solutions (connectivity, video and audio, and smart device offering) and infrastructure that can be repurposed to fit the AIP needs. With these needs in mind, we have proposed four potential offerings they can offer while playing to their strengths:

• Basic AIP: A Basic AIP could offer services to help with some fundamental instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and monitoring services. Refer to the “What are IADLs?” insert for a brief introduction to IADLs.
• Hospital at Home (HAH): A HAH could appear in many ways, but overall, it would address the elder’s healthcare needs at home as opposed to visiting a hospital.
• Install and Support (IandS): The IandS is an overarching offering that can be unique to the stakeholder. For example, elders may have a lower need for IandS at home with simple-to-use devices, while hospitals may need a higher level of integration requiring more from IandS.
• Other AIP Services: Other AIP services include a wide array of potential offerings that are not covered by the other three. This could include sensor packages, analytics, cognition support, etc.

Each of these packages was created to take into consideration the needs of the elderly and how operators can enter the market. Many of these packages are flexible depending on the company and how they plan to impact the AIP market. But when considering stakeholders and different offerings, our model predicted that in 2030 the operators could see $155Bn in revenue. Some costs considered in this analysis include the customer premises equipment, service offering, operations, training, and overhead costs. Each offering will carry a different level of cost. HAH, for example, may require more technical medical training, thus incurring more training costs. Even after these costs are considered, we project US operators could generate around $111Bn in profits in 2030.