HomeGrid Forum

Linley Group: "battle of proprietary home-networking tech nears end"

Joseph Byrne, Senior Analyst at Linley Group (one of the leading research firms for semiconductors), has written an in-depth post ("Fruitless battle of proprietary home-networking tech nears end") on the current situation of the wired home networking industry and the potential of G.hn to solve the fragmentation problem:

There are two efforts abreast to change the situation. The most promising of the two is the G.hn spec being developed under the auspices of the ITU. The developers of this spec made two sage decisions.

$7 billion by 2013

iSuppli analyst Steve Rago has done an exceptional amount of research into the digital home and broadband markets.  I just recently came across his latest on wired home networking.  In the report, he predicts the market will grow to some $7 billion in value and 500 million units.

According to Rago, "The connected home is coming. But how do we get there? The managed home network needs wired solutions. Wireless, such as WiFi, cannot meet the quality of service or the bandwidths necessary to support real-time multi-media traffic in the connected home."  Here, here Steve. We couldn't have said it any better ourselves. 

AT&T Speaks Out on G.hn

AT&T Labs' Tom Starr has been involved in the development of G.hn almost from the beginning.  And he has a unique insight into this next-generation standard.  He knows how the technology landscape for service providers around the world is changing.  He also knows how new multi-play and managed services are straining the current generation of technology. 

Find out what Tom knows, by downloading this new webinar.  

10 Things You Should Know About G.hn

This blog post ("Top Ten Things You Need to Know About the New G.hn Standard") includes a list of the most important benefits provided by G.hn, with a discussion on topics like security, Quality of Service, energy efficiency, performance over powerlines and more.

Click here to read the complete post ("Top Ten Things You Need to Know About the New G.hn Standard")

Baby monitors killing urban wireless home networks?

Wireless LAN technologies such as Wi-Fi or some of the emerging new wireless technologies for short distance communications (such as the recently announced WiGig Alliance) provide a very convenient solution for applications where users need mobility (laptops, smart phones, portable music players, etc).

But the fact that Wi-Fi frequently uses the crowded 2.4 GHz band tends to cause problems for applications which require a very stable connection such as IPTV distribution.

Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, has recently published a report on the effectiveness of the 2.4 GHz band. This story at PC Pro (UK) provides a good summary:

Baby monitors killing urban Wi-Fi

[...] "There is a view that some domestic users generate excessive amounts of Wi-Fi traffic, denying access to other users," claims the report from wireless specialists, Mass Consutling. "Our research suggests that this is not the case, rather the affected parties are almost certainly seeing interference from non-Wi-Fi devices such as microwave ovens, Audio Video senders, security cameras or baby monitors."

Parks: Connected CE sales to exceed 100 million units annually by 2013

Parks Associates has recently published a report on "Home Networks for Consumer Electronics", that predicts that "Consumer demand for digital media and online content will push worldwide annual sales of connected CE to more than 100 million units by 2013".

In-Stat Teams Up with HomeGrid on New Webinar

In-Stat analyst Joyce Putscher knows her stuff. She has 25 years experience in the electronics field and market research, and currently covers home networks, automation, multimedia and more.

Putscher recently teamed up with HomeGrid Forum and produced a very insightful webinar regarding the state of the home networking market. She outlines how the market is evolving to accommodate growing multimedia content and how networks are converging to connect broadcast media and computing services. To view the webinar, visit the HomeGrid Forum's Resource Library.

G.hn: data rate analysis

This blog post ("How fast can G.hn be?") includes a detailed analysis of the maximum theoretical performance we can expect from the G.hn standard when operating over coaxial cable.

[...] actual throughput provided by any communications technology is heavily dependent on both the PHY (Physical Layer) and DLL (Data Link Layer) design. [..] Although the PHY for G.hn is described in Recommendation G.9960, which received consent in December 2008, the most important aspects of the DLL have not become stable (ie, become "baseline", using ITU-T terminology) until April 2009. With both PHY and DLL in place, we can now work out some numbers to estimate how fast a G.hn implementation could run in theory.[...]

Click here to read the complete analysis ("How fast can G.hn be?")

Update on G.hn from HomePNA

The HomePNA Alliance, which in February announced its plan to work with HomeGrid Forum and other organizations to promote the G.hn standard, has posted an update on G.hn on their blog:

In case you were wondering, G.hn is continuing to astound standards watchers by making good progress. Work at the April meeting, held the week before last, focused on two areas – resolving the remaining comments on the “foundation” document and new submissions on the G.hn MAC.

(You can read the rest at the HomePNA blog).

Interest in IPTV keeps growing

A couple of stories on the rising interest in IPTV, which is one of the most important applications for the G.hn standard:
Carol Wilson, at Telephony Online ("NAB: IPTV rising?"):

A year ago at the NAB show, the buzz around IPTV had taken a decidedly negative turn, especially where North American independent telcos were concerned. [...] What a difference a year has made. At this year's NAB, there have been fewer questions about whether IPTV is viable or necessary and more focus on the best way to get into the video market quickly and somehow blend over-the-top Internet video with on-demand and broadcast products. Vendors, from headend equipment makers and middleware companies to set-top box makers and integrators, are reporting a steady uptick in deployments and discussions.
[...] Realistically, if you are a tier-three or tier-four telco, you either have to get the asset ready to sell or get into IPTV,"[...] Competition from satellite, cable and ISP operators is cannibalizing traditional revenues.

Not only Tier-2 and Tier-3 Telcos are seen increased interest in IPTV. Tier-1 Telcos are getting more subscribers every quarter ("U-verse TV Adds Subscribers, Challenges Cable Rivals"):

After some delay, AT&T may finally be making strides with what it hoped it do with the launch of its U-verse TV service: challenge cable's successful triple play. The company said Wednesday it added 284,000 U-Verse TV subscribers in the January-March period, pushing its total number to 1.3 million. The number of new customers was 20,000 more than the new additions in the fourth quarter of 2008.