Service Providers are continuing to voice support of Homeplug technology as the long term solution for powerline home networking.

According to Carol Wilson of Light Reading, "G.hn, the home networking standard whose physical architecture was adopted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) earlier this month, is not getting rave reviews from some broadband service providers because of concern that the standard lacks backward compatibility with existing home network technologies, particularly HomePlugAV, the powerline home network".

The solution is simple. A planned Amendment to the G.hn PHY is currently under discussion in ITU. That Amendment must ensure compatibility with HomeplugAV.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=183799&f_src=lightreading_gnews

Third Knock in Roughly Three Weeks for G.hn

There is a great article in SmartGridToday publication asking the question:
"Could MoCA/HomePlug win in-home networking wars?"

The author cites three significant events in last three weeks that have created positive impact to the home networking space in general.

1) Participants in smart grid Interoperability Standards questioned the viability of Ghn, though NIST included it in the draft roadmap.

Truth of the matter is G.hn, does not have MAC specifications. They have only approved PHY specification, for which there is already an amendment. An amendment to a specification is a document that addresses the missing elements, additional features for the particular specification. G.9960(PHY document) that got approved last month, already has an amendment in works. This reflects the maturity and the completeness of the document.
Currently, apart from PHY specifications* (amendment- not yet published), G.hn has nothing to offer the industry.


2) IEEE P1901 200 Mbps PLC interoperability standard dropped the placeholder for third PHY layer meant to support G.hn


The group gave an opportunity to G.hn group to provide access extensions for PHY/MAC for 9 months. In those nine moths, there were no contributions provided that would address the access extensions for G.hn. This reflected again the maturity of the G.hn specifications. Finally, to streamline the specifications, IEEE 1901 group overwhelmingly decided to remove G.hn compatible PHY from the specifications.

3) Entropic will partner with Intellon to boost the availability of home networking solutions combining coaxial cable and powerline Communications.

According to Smart Grid, Entropic's work with Intellon amounts to the third knock in roughly three weeks for G.hn.
Unlike G.hn solution, the joint work will develop solution that will be backwards compatible with tens of million chipsets deployed in the market.

Thanks
P. Raj

Well, fun times in IEEE 1901 land....

As I mentioned in my previous blog, that IEEE 1901 is making siginificant strides towards completion of the specification and an important step towards it was the approval of the letter ballot in July. Since then the group has dedicated its time to resolving the comments.

As per the last weeks' IEEE 1901 Boston meeting, we have resolved more than 50% of the comments. Unlike other standards group(where the editor decides himself as to the resolution is consulted before the comments are disposed.

Also, last week, the IEEE 1901 group unanimously agreed to include Smart Energy and Transportation Platform in the PAR.

During the meeting in Boston, the working group also decided to stop the development of the ITU-T G.hn Compatible PHY/MAC Draft option. Related chapters and annexes were removed from the Draft, becausse of the immaturity of the G.hn specifications.

Looking at the group composition one can really appreciate the diversity of IEEE 1901 membership ranging from utilities, service providers, OEMs, ODMs, technology integrators, CE manufacturers, silicon manufacturers etc. The groups' membership has been increasing steadily over the course of time.

Things are moving forward in a positive way and we expect the specfications to be ready soon.

Thanks
P Raj

In the arena of home networking research and analysis, Parks Associates are the acknowledged leaders, and Kurt Scherf is the doyen. When Kurt speaks, you listen. Recently, Kurt has been discussing wireline technologies with service providers and his conclusions are very interesting.

Concerns about ITU G.hn’s failure to build in compatibility with the dominant existing technologies on powerline and coax, Homeplug and MOCA respectively are now clearly being voiced.

According to an article published in the standard, 15 October 2009, recent conversations with European service providers have convinced Kurt that HomePlug has strong backing from that industry, which is the most important channel for wired home network gear today. "I do not think that the G.hn effort will fully succeed until they take into account HomePlug and build in some compatibility with it," Scherf said.

The article can be found here http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/10/15/g-hn-home-network-standard-progresses