49 posts categorized "G.hn"
G.hn: The Global Stimulus Package
July 10, 2009 2:07 AM in G.hn , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
This is a bit pie in the sky, but here goes: at one of these global leaders summits- you know, the one where all the Presidents, Kings, Queens, Prime Ministers and Heads of this State and that State get get together, I wish they would take five minutes out of their event and give acknowledgement to the ITU and their role in getting the G.hn ball rolling.
Wanna make the economy rock and roll again?
Have every one of these world leaders promote family,
entrepreneurship, healthcare, energy savings, and hey, while we’re at it – a
bit of world peace, by encouraging the acceleration of G.hn-based products.
Why should they?
Because once we can deliver broadband on all three media types all the way to devices inside the home, we flatten the world, raise people out of poverty, improve global education, improve global healthcare, dramatically improve productivity, reduce cultural differences and stimulate innovation.
In fact, I would like to see President Obama, assign his CTO, Aneesh Chopra, to come up with the equivalent of the X-prize, but for home networking technologies based on the G.hn standard.
Your take?
And Why Not The Energy Channel?
July 09, 2009 4:07 PM in Alan Weinkrantz , AT&T , G.hn , U-verse | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
AT&T has just served
up a slew of new features that I recently received overnight. The biggest news was the software update that allows my
family to enjoy new Total Home DVR capabilities and navigation enhancements,
plus a new and visually enhanced look and feel which you can see here
The other new features that were added for
all U-verse TV customers include a new Mobile Remote Access App for the iPhone,
enhancements to AT&T’s Web Remote Access app and a free month of Starz in
July as a customer appreciation promotion.
You can view a demo of these enhancements here, and a demo of U-verse Mobile Remote
Access App for iPhone here.
With all the great technology and all the great channels, I
wonder: why not a channel that is
tied to my utility company (in my case, CPS / San Antonio), that would let me
watch and monitor the family’s energy consumption?
And while we’re away- why not a special app on my iPhone that is tied
to my G.hn wired home network, so I can monitor the house and all energy
consumption when we’re away? Even
with Microsoft’s recent announcement, promoting its new hohm offering, it’s not quite enough.
My take is that Microsoft with it being the middleware provider to AT&T and other telcos around
the world, should address how they could tie their software platform to my soon
to be G.hn-based network to not only enjoy great broadcast programming, but
help my family save money and help make my home a bit more green.
Now Available: A Service Provider's Perspective on G.hn
May 18, 2009 2:05 PM in Alan Weinkrantz , AT&T , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomeGrid Forum , Tom Starr , U-verse , Wired Home Networking | 1 comments | 0 TrackBack
The service provider landscape continues to dramatically change, with growing emphasis on increasingly complex multi-play offerings that include Internet Protocol-based voice, video, and high-speed data.
These services need to not only be delivered to the home, but throughout the home to everywhere they are needed.
What role will the service
provider play in whole-home networking?
And what do these companies require from the next-generation wired networking technologies that
will come to market? Find out by
downloading the new webinar from HomeGrid
Forum.
WHAT: This new webinar will deliver a service provider’s perspective on next-generation wired home networking, including:
·
Technical
requirements for a next-generation standard
·
Critical
improvements necessary for adoption
·
Considerations
in transitioning from current- to next-generation standards
·
Differences
in implementation in single and multi-dwelling units
· Advantages of single vs. multiple standards/approaches
WHO: The webinar is presented by Tom Starr, lead member of technical staff at AT&T, and Mario Finocchiaro, director of business development for Aware, Inc. and secretary of the HomeGrid Forum. (Note: I recently had the chance to interview AT&T's Tom Starr, Lead Member of Technical Staff, which you may read here.)
WHERE: To download the webinar and other materials from HomeGrid
Forum, visit the organization’s Resource Library at http://www.homegridforum.org/resource_library
WHEN: The webinar is available now.
Guest Blogger, DS2's Chano Gomez Writes: Top Ten Things You Need to Know About the New G.hn Standard
May 16, 2009 1:05 AM in 802.11n , Alan Weinkrantz , Chano Gomez , DS2 , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
DS2's Chano Gomez, contributes this post which is re-published by permission from his company's blog. Readers of this blog already know that G.hn (also known as G.9960) is the new standard developed by ITU (the same group of experts that developed the highly succesful ADSL, VDSL and VDSL2 standards) for high-speed networking over existing home wiring (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cable). We have written about how fast G.hn is, about the various organizations that support G.hn, and about the major applications targeted by G.hn. What we have not done before is providing a comprehensive overview of the most important advantages provided by the standard. So, that's the goal of this post. G.hn will be fast. As we detailed in this post ("How fast can G.hn be?"), with its default setting G.hn can provide a line data rate over coaxial cable of up to 843.75 Mbps (with actual Ethernet throughput at 762.05 Mbps), and includes optimizations that can support line data rates up to 1.02 Gbit/s. This does not mean that all G.hn products will operate at 1 Gbit/s. In fact, it's very likely that initial products will support lower data rates, and that future products will increase the maximum data rate, all without having to change the standard and without breaking interoperability. Not only that: G.hn supports the concept of "profiles", which will allow silicon vendors to design devices with lower complexity and lower data rates for specific applications. We will see G.hn-compatible devices for applications like Energy management and Home automation, operating at low data rates, while maintaining compatibility with high-speed G.hn products. Unlike other specifications that only support one type of wire (power lines only, or coaxial cable only), G.hn specifies a unified Physical Layer and Data Link Layer that can operate over multiple wire types (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables). This blog post ("Why do we need a unified standard at all?") explains the benefits of having a single PHY/MAC standard for multiple wires, and why Service providers have pushed for G.hn to support it. Does that mean that G.hn will not be optimized for any specific wire? No. In fact, G.hn includes parameters that are specifically optimized for each medium. For example, key elements of the PHY/DLL, such as OFDM sub-carrier spacing, the Forward Error Correction (FEC) or the ARQ(retransmission) mechanisms. G.hn will outperform any of the existing wired home networking technologies over any medium. Unlike with existing wired home networking technologies, which traditionally only have had a single silicon vendor providing actual products (severely limiting customer choice), multiple silicon and IP vendors (including DS2) have already announced support for the G.hn standard in their future products. And we are not talking about start-ups here. These are serious vendors who have shipped several millions of chips into the home networking and DSL markets. Having multiple silicon vendors offering interoperable G.hn products will create healthy competition in the marketplace, will accelerate technical innovation and will ensure that customers get the best products at the best possible price. HomeGrid Forum is the organization set up specifically to promote adoption of G.hn and to ensure interoperability and compliance with the standard. But HomeGrid Forum is not the only organization supporting G.hn: On February 2009, three home networking organizations that promoted previously incompatible technologies (CEPCA, HomePNA and UPA), announced that they had agreed to work with Homegrid Forum to promote G.hn as the single next-generation standard for wired home networking, and to work to ensure coexistence with existing products in the market. G.hn, by itself, is not directly interoperable with existing wired home networking technologies. There is a reason for this: there are at least 5 completely different legacy specification. As this article says ("On the issue of G.hn's FEC"): If G.hn tried to be compatible with all of the existing wired technologies that have shipped millions of devices into the market, then it would have 5 different modulation schemes, 5 FEC schemes, 5 security schemes, 5 MACs, 5 of everything. That would be the best way to make it the most complex standard ever designed. But G.hn is about simplicity (one PHY and one MAC that works anywhere) so the group decided early on that they didn't want to follow that path. So, what about the installed base of existing products? Do we have to replace them? Fortunately not. Those G.hn vendors with an installed base of legacy home networking technologies have announced plans to develop "dual mode" chips that will be compatible with G.hn and with legacy specification. DS2 was the first vendor to announce this, which means that products based on the UPA specification will interoperate with future G.hn products from DS2. G.hn uses AES-128 as the encryption algorithm, and ITU Recommendation X.1035 as the protocol for authentication and key exchange. G.hn security is very strong (much stronger than that provided by many existing systems based on DES and 3DES), and provides an additional advantage to system designers over many other home networking technologies: G.hn products don't need to support a plethora of legacy encryption mechanisms (unlikeIEEE 802.11 products, which usually need to support multiple security schemes, such as WEP, TKIP and CCMP). Having fewer options also means better security, as there are fewer chances to introduce bugs in G.hn implementations. G.hn includes a nice feature specifically designed to extend the range of the network: relaying. Although DS2 products based on the UPAspecification have supported this feature for many years, most existing wired technologies do not support it. Automatic relaying is a key technology for wide area networks such as Broadband over Powerline networks deployed over utility power lines. Using this feature, a G.hn "source node" can use an intermediate "relay node" to send data to another "destination node", even if the source and destination nodes are not within direct reach from each other. This feature improves network reach and will allow G.hn to be used in large installations. G.hn will include mechanisms that will allow devices to go into "sleep state" in order to reduce energy consumption and to quickly get back to "active state" as soon as a device needs to send data. Advanced support for "sleep states" are required to support the latest European Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption of Broadband Equipment. G.hn includes multiple mechanisms to improve reliability over any kind of wire. Of the three wires supported by G.hn, power lines are probably the harshest ones, so the G.hn group has spent a significant amount of time optimizing performance for that case. How does G.hn handle reliability over noisy power lines?: Many existing wired (and wireless) networking systems use Medium Access Control mechanisms based on variations of CSMA/CA. One of the advantages of CSMA/CA is its simplicity, but this comes at a cost: because CSMA/CA is collision-based, performance of CSMA/CA-based systems is very dependent on network load and QoS in general cannot be guaranteed. Systems like CSMA/CARP improve this by introducing priority-based access, but the problem still persists when multiple system with the same priority want to use the channel at the same time. The G.hn MAC is based on a master/slave TDMA architecture, in which a central device ("the domain master") allocates channel access to other "slave" nodes in a predictable manner. Slave nodes can request specific allocations of bandwidth to the domain master, which can implement them by assigning exclusive "contention-free" time slots to each slave. With this mechanism, G.hn can provide guaranteed bandwidth and latency to applications that have strict QoS requirements, such as IPTV, VoIP or on-line gaming.#1: G.hn is faster than any existing wired home networking technology
#2: G.hn works over any type of home wire
#3: G.hn is supported by multiple silicon vendors
#4: G.hn is supported by multiple Industry Groups
#5: Most products based on G.hn will provide compatibility options with existing home networking technologies
#6: G.hn provides state-of-the-art security
#7: G.hn will have longer range than most existing home networking technologies
#8: G.hn will reduce energy consumption
#9: G.hn will provide reliable communication over noisy home wires
#10: G.hn will provide predictable service to QoS-sensitive applications such as IPTV
U-verse Pre-wired and Part of San Antonio's First Urban Residential High Rise
May 11, 2009 1:05 PM in Alan Weinkrantz , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , U-verse , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
In my other life, I have another blog, 3Screens.net, that cover a consumer's view on being an AT&T three-screen customer.
In-Stat and HomeGrid Forum Publish Webinar Addressing Evolution of the Home Network
May 05, 2009 3:05 AM in Alan Weinkrantz , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomeGrid Forum , In-Stat , Joyce Putscher | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
The market for home networking is rapidly evolving. It's moving from highly segregated networks -- one for broadcast media services and the other for PC computing -- to much more integrated approaches. Until now, everyone from consumers to major telecommunications service providers have had competing agendas. But that's all changing.
How will these networks evolve over time and what technologies are necessary for truly integrated, next-generation wired in-home networks? Find out by downloading this new webinar.
WHAT:
This new webinar discusses the following:
· Digital home vision
· Forecast of home networks and throughput
· How in-home networks are being driven by competing forces, and the result
· Trends driving and shaping home networks
· Opportunities for next-generation wired networks
WHO: The webinar is presented by Joyce Putscher, a Principal Analyst of In-Stat’s Digital Entertainment Group, and Matt Theall, President of the HomeGrid Forum and Technology Strategist focused on wired home networking for Intel's Digital Home Group.
WHERE: To download the webinar and other materials from HomeGrid Forum, visit the organization’s Resource Library.
WHEN: The webinar is available now.
HomeGrid Forum Publishes Whitepaper Describing how G.hn Unifies Home Networking Market
May 01, 2009 11:05 AM in Alan Weinkrantz , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomeGrid Forum , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
Since the inception of this blog, I do get the occasional naysayer challenging me on compatibility issues with G.hn. From the get-go, the standard for next-generation home networking being developed by the International Telecommunication Union’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T). was designed to operate over any kind of home wiring, including powerlines, phone lines, and coaxial cables.
As part of the migration path towards a single unifying home networking technology, it’s expected that G.hn networks will need to coexist with several types of existing home networking technologies. And now, HomeGrid Forum's new whitepaper outlines the compatibility mechanisms between G.hn transceivers and existing, non-ITU-T standard home networking devices, including coexistence and interoperability options.
The white paper is easy to read and understand and includes contributions from industry leaders, some of which have been interviewed on this blog. These include: Chano Gomez, DS2; Stefano Galli, Panasonic; Barry O'Mahony, Intel Corporation; Vladimir Oksman, Infineon Technologies; and Mario Finocchiaro, Aware.
To
download the whitepaper and other materials from HomeGrid Forum, just visit the
organization’s resource library at www.homegridforum.org/resource_library. There is no charge for the white paper
and worth reading!
It’s A Small World, After All….
March 16, 2009 1:03 PM in Alan Weinkrantz , CopperGate , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomePNA , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 0 TrackBack
Outside of the U.S., consumers in countries large and small alike are looking to be part of the wired home networking revolution.
According to market research firm, Multimedia Research Group, by 2012, North America will have only about 17% share of the total worldwide subscribers (but it will dominate the global market in terms of gross service provider revenues.)
Taking a clue from this data, I think it’s important to look in various parts of the world as to how and where the wired home networking revolution and the deployment of the G.hn standard will take hold.
When I look for indicators, I look at data from market research firms, design wins, new technology, and new product announcements from vendors. In the transition to G.hn, the vendors still have technology-- and a product pipeline to fill.
Case in
point: last week, chip vendor,
CopperGate Communications announced a design win with Codetel, the largest
telco in the Dominican Republic.
At the other end of the spectrum, today CopperGate is announcing its new CopperGate CG3210M chipset. It is the
next generation HomePNA-based solution for multi-dwelling units (MDU)
and hospitality applications in Asia. They’re claiming delivery of up to
190 Mbit/s of IP traffic and is a third of the price for DOCSIS 3.0-based
solutions to deliver the same throughput.
The CopperGate
announcement quotes Kurt Scherf, VP and Principal Analyst with Parks
Assocations as saying “This new product will be particularly well-positioned in
Asian markets because of the rapidly-growing middle class of consumers who are
seeking these amenities for their apartments.”
That’s pretty
telling in that going forward, I think we all need to keep an eye on the market
outside of the United States.
Now, back to my headline for a minute.
In remembering
the song, “It’s a Small World,” here is something else to remember: the song was purposed for use at the
1964-65 World’s Fair in New York, a time when the old, old, old AT&T was
touting its futuristic “Videophone” at the same venue.
I wonder what
would happen today if a world’s fair were being held -- you pick the
country-- but with G.hn, and its
potential applications as the headlining attraction.
If I was
running the show, I’d license the song from Disney, and get every service
provider on planet earth to sing along, and imagine the potential of what a
global, single standard like G.hn could bring to the wired home networking
revolution.
Why G.hn is now the Official Big Enchilada of Wired Home Networking Standards.
March 12, 2009 4:03 AM in Alan Weinkrantz , Best Buy , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomeGrid Forum , HomePlug , HomePNA , MoCA , P1901 , U-verse , Wired Home Networking | 0 comments | 1 TrackBack
Last night as I was running some
errands, I drove by and decided to pay a visit to my local Best Buy where I
live in San Antonio. I walked
through the myriad of big screen TVs and of course the way cool Magnolia
Theater section of the store.
I needed to do this in order think through a bit more about how and why Best Buy’s role as a Board Member of the HomeGrid Forum will impact the future of the wired home network.
Then it hit me.
Being an AT&T U-verse customer, I must confess that my brain has been way too service provider-centric since I have been living on HomePNA for the past three years.
The “ah-ha” moment came to me when I realized that in one fell swoop, the big box retailer will be the key driver in the migration to the next generation of wired home networking - the G.hn standard. Now that Circuit City is dead, Best Buy controls what U.S. consumers buy in terms of consumer electronics, home appliances, and computers.
Best Buy wants to make sure that when a customer walks in the door to shop and hopefully buy, the entire experience is excellent. While I haven’t spoken to Best Buy, my guess is they probably realize all too well that the home networking experience today is not that great an experience. There are too many standards, different devices that don’t work well together and as a result, customers get confused and return their products.
Best Buy can fix all that. By
pushing TV, appliance, computer and network device makers towards a common
standard like G.hn, Best Buy can do more to help rally the industry around a
unified approach to the connected home.
Plus, what Best Buy does in the U.S. will impact what other big box
retailers in other parts of the world.
My guess is once Best Buy decides to embrace G.hn in full, every hardware company will have to migrate from existing standards such as HomePlug, MoCA and HomePNA to G.hn. This probably won’t happen overnight. It will probably take years. Still, I can’t hardly wait and see how Best Buy makes it all work seamlessly together.
HomeGrid Forum Adds New Members; Holy Geek Squad: Best Buy Joins Board of Directors
March 09, 2009 7:03 PM in Alan Weinkrantz , EveryWire , EveryWire.com , G.hn , Home Networking , HomeGrid Forum , Laboratoire des Applications Numeriques , P1901 , University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory | 0 comments | 1 TrackBack
HomeGrid Forum today announced
that Best Buy, Laboratoire des Applications Numeriques (LAN), University of New
Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory, and ACN Advanced Communications Networks
SA (ACN) have joined the growing list of HomeGrid Forum members.
While this list is certainly compelling, what is most telling in today’s announcement is that the mother of all big box retailers, and survivor of the consumer electronics retail downturn, Best Buy, has been appointed to HomeGrid Forum’s board of directors.
Walk into any Best Buy and then head over to their Magnolia Home Theater department. That’s where the rubber meets the road and big gross dollars are spent when a consumer decides to go all the way with high- end home theater. And even if the consumer just needs new big screen TV or an audio system, Best Buy is still the place where the consumer is going to make a decision and try to get educated on making sure their purchase is good for the long run.
I also think this move will be good for Best Buy’s Geek Squad division which is the group that comes to your home to help deploy and install your equipment purchase. With Best Buy supporting the global adoption of the ITU-T’s G.hn next-generation technology as the single wired standard for connecting devices together over coax, powerlines, and phonelines in the home, it should make the installation process a much simpler one.
At the other end of the spectrum in today’s announcement, two of the new member companies -- Laboratoire des Applications Numeriques and University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory -- are established and highly respected leaders in the field of standards compliance and interoperability testing for broadband networking technologies.
This is also a big deal because they will help ensure the deployment of high quality G.hn products through rigorous test programs based on the HomeGrid Compliance & Interoperability Program.
Products that pass these tests will receive the HomeGrid-Certified logo, an assurance that G.hn-based products from any vendor will deliver the performance and interoperability necessary to connect computing, communications, and entertainment products in the digital home. And that takes me back to where Best Buy fits in.
Having a HomeGrid-Certified logo on your product helps the consumer make a
decision where it matters the most:
at the point of going from let me think about this, to “honey, let’s
take this one home.”
Everywire is a blog that will talk about G.hn and related wired networking news.
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