Let’s say you’re an engineer with the responsibility to select a powerline communications technology to make a product. It isn’t an easy choice. I would look at all the candidates and undergo at least a minimal comparison. But for practical reasons, I would select the standard with the best chip availability, support from an organization like an alliance, market penetration, and future roadmap or potential. I’m sure other non-engineering issues will influence that decision like various partnerships, customer relationships, and personal and political reasons.
Given an engineering-only approach, I would probably go with HomePlug AV. It appears to meet all the criteria I mentioned above. It has powerline communication (PLC) pioneer Intellon for chips as well as Giggle. It is also part of the IEEE P1901 standard. It has good support from an alliance with more than 70 members. Furthermore, it has a road map to the next generation, called AV2, which boosts the data rate to more than 200 Mbits/s.
I couldn’t check market penetration, but I bet there are more HomePlug-compatible products out there than any others. HomePlug indicated that HP had more than 27 million compatible products out there already. Anyway, that’s what I would do based on common sense alone. As comedian Dennis Miller used to say, “That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”
Each situation is unique, and in many ways, it’s good to have so many competing options. My big question, though, is who on earth wants to wait another few years until the ITU standard is complete. Will it be better or more compelling that what’s already on the books and roadmaps? It doesn’t make sense to have another standard, even if it promises to incorporate compatibility measures with existing standards. Any new chip that supports multiple technologies is going to be bigger, more complex, and, more importantly, more expensive.
More On G.hn
To be fair, I spoke with the folks at the HomeGrid Forum, the organization that supports and promotes the G.hn standard. Their stated objectives are solid and sound promising. Basically, they want to deliver a single unified technology for the wired home network that addresses key issues for service providers, electronics manufacturers, and consumers. They’re trying to foster a single PHY/media access controller (MAC) that can be used over any wire, coax, phone line, or powerline.
The promise is a 400-Mbit/s data rate with aggregate of 250-Mbit/s throughput, with a 1-Gbit/s rate on the roadmap. The group’s goal is to get products integrated into consumer electronics as well as set-top boxes (STBs), residential gateways, and other customer premises equipment (CPE). It’s hard to fault the goals, for sure. The HomeGrid Forum isn’t just targeting the powerline space but other home networking technologies like MoCA and HomePNA as well. The group has more than 35 members, and many of them already support other standards. I guess you have to cover all of the bases in this field in case it takes off.
What will happen to the other standards once this one is finally approved and chips are available? Will everyone rush to it and abandon the older standards? That’s hard to believe. And not only will all the other powerline standards be affected, but G.hn should have an effect on those other wired home networking standards like MoCA and HomePNA as well. Is G.hn too little too late? Will it further split the industry into one more camp? Or will it finally bring everyone together?
What’s Next?
I don’t know how this will all play out. It is certainly one of the more interesting communications standards fights I have seen in a while. All the existing standards organizations have stated a willingness to work with and support the G.hn effort. They hope to influence the outcome or get in on any co-existence or interoperability efforts. Will that lead to a final standard designed by a committee and so overly complex it accommodates everyone? We’ll have to keep an eye on the developments. I’ll report on them as they happen.
The subject here is actually about home powerline networking, rather than the medium voltage internet access promised by BPL, some of whose experimental trials were canceled.
That said, even in the "home" environment, there is nothing that keeps the RF signals placed on your powelines from being shared with all your neighbors on the same side of the nearest transformer. This could be a real problem in condos and apartments where a large number of people are sharing the same "pipe". Don't expect any of the claimed signalling rates if there is ever a reasonable amount of market share penetration.
mressler -May 28, 2009
And this is something we should care about? Yes, powerline networking may be a bit more secure than wireless networking, but with wireless networking built in to nearly all computers now, I'd say that this technology is trending towards irrelevance.
Anonymous -May 28, 2009
Powerline networking -- ten years down, ten to go.
Those of us that cared about this for years finally gave up a while ago. It's like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football.
ewertz -May 28, 2009
Nothing was mentioned about the trials of this technology that have caused RF emissions interference with radio communications. These trials were subsequently cancelled.
Anonymous -May 27, 2009
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