The Intel-backed HomeGrid Forum, which is promoting the ITU’s G.hn efforts as a “single standard for next-generation home networking, now has formal agreements with three alliances that have been developing and promoting other home network standards:
The Consumer Electronics Powerline Communication Alliance (CEPCA), whose chips are made by Panasonic’s semiconductor operation.
The HomePNA Alliance, whose chips are made by Coppergate.
The Universal Powerline Association (UPA), whose chips are primarily made by DS2.
The missing, however, are two home network alliances that between them have more home network nodes installed than any of the others:
– MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance), whose chips are made by Entropic. Significant is that the single largest deployment of wireline home networking by one company is Verizon for its FiOS. Verizon is installing only MoCA-compliant gear.
At last count, at the end of December, Verizon had 1,918,000 subscribers. At, say, four network nodes per home and considering that the first quarter is two-thirds over, Verizon’s total MoCA count must be approaching 9-10 million and counting, because Verizon recently told us it has no plans to switch to a different network scheme. And the more nodes a company installs the harder and more expensive it is to switch to an incompatible network.
Another missing from the list is HomePlug, the original Powerline home network standard, whose chips are made primarily by Intellon. No single operator has as many HomePlug nodes installed as MoCA does at Verizon but, in total, there are an estimated 35 million HomePlug nodes installed worldwide. Many European and Asian operators use HomePlug. There’s also a retail market for HomePlug that does pretty well. Intellon (HomePlug) and Entropic (MoCA) so far have made no public commitment to developing or building G.hn chips.
The US operator with the second largest installed base is AT&T, which uses HomePNA, primarily using homes’ coax cable, but also capable of being used on the home’s copper phone wires. At last count HomePNA had more than 5 million devices shipped.
Entropic is currently the only maker of MoCA chips. However, Broadcom said at CES that it would also make MoCA chips. If it does, it could have a significant positive impact on MoCA’s proliferation because a) competition in chips usually results in making prices lower, b) makers compete by developing chips that do more, c) large equipment purchasers such as the telcos prefer having second sources before they standardize on an important product and d) Broadcom’s size and longevity adds credibility to MoCA.
Broadcom said it would integrate MoCA in two new systems-on-a-chip (SoC) video decoders, which should reduce the incremental cost of adding MoCA to set-top boxes.
The HomeGrid Forum said the three groups are joining with it to promote G.hn and ensure co-existence between G.hn-based products and those using other current-generation Powerline, phone line and coax networking technologies. Matthew Theall, president of the HomeGrid Forum, said the goal is to move the industry to a single wired home networking standard by working together. The G.hn standard, he said, would “greatly simplify” home networking for consumers and service providers.
Akio Kurobe, CEPCA president, said that working with HomeGrid would ensure that G.hn technology will co-exist with existing Powerline technologies and also the forthcoming IEEE P1901 Powerline standard that includes G.hn technology.
The HomePNA Alliance has been developing home networking for IPTV over coax and over phone wires, according to William Simmelink, president of HomePNA, whose members include AT&T, Motorola, Cisco and CopperGate. Motorola and Cisco, in it’s former Scientific Atlanta operation, make set-top boxes for pay-TV companies. CopperGate makes HomePNA chips.
Coppergate, which is the primary chipmaker for HomePNA devices, is an ardent G.hn partisan to the point where it has promised to ship the first G.hn chips. However, it is not, the last time we checked, a member of HomeGrid. To help it get the lead in G.hn coming out of the gate, CopperGate acquired Conexant’s HomePlug AV Powerline patents and technology, which is an important element of G.hn.
Daniel Drolet, chairman of the Universal Powerline Association, said that working with HomeGrid Forum will allow for a “true” unified standard and products that easily interoperate.
The goal for G.hn, backed by some of the world’s largest telcos, is to develop a single technology that will work over any wire – coax cable, phone and power lines. Service providers want to reduce the cost of deployment. Consumers will be able to buy G.hn-compatible gear for entertainment, home automation and security products.
HomeGrid Forum said it “continues to seek new members that can help drive the success of G.hn,” no doubt meaning MoCA and HomePlug.
Who knows? Maybe MoCA and HomePlug, which are not members of HomeGrid, may be off plotting their own single network/multiple wire strategy. They do share four board members: Cisco and Motorola, the two set-top box makers, cableco Comcast and Panasonic, which makes both Powerline chips and MoCA set-top boxes.
Also worth noting is that as best as we can determine, HomeGrid does not have a formal agreement with the ITU to be the exclusive driver/promoter of G.hn. HomeGrid’s Web site says, “HomeGrid Forum is a companion organization to ITU.”
It also says, “The goal of HomeGrid Forum is to support the development of a specification in ITU-T G.hn and to focus on marketing the technology and establishing a compliance and interoperability program for products based on the ITU-T G.hn specification.”
It does not say there is a formal, written agreement between the two.
Last June, when CopperGate said it is fully committed to the G.hn standard and is confident that G.hn will become the universal home networking standard worldwide, Rich Nesin, VP of marketing, said, “The G.hn standard has been progressing very quickly even before the HomeGrid Forum emerged.”