Israel-based Celeno Communications, which produces a system-on-a-chip (SoC) for Wi-Fi boxes which handle digital media, has landed a deal to supply them to China-based FiberHome Telecommunication Technologies for use in optical network gateways, that use Wi-Fi for streaming IPTV throughout the home in HD.
Connected to FTTH networks, the boxes will be used for fast broadband access and triple-play services: data, voice and HD IPTV. Celeno said that in China there’s growing demand for wireless HD IPTV home networking. The world’s digital homes are moving to a full wireless lifestyle, it said. Shanghai Telecom, an operating unit of the telco giant China Telecom, will be the first to deploy the boxes. Other provinces will follow, China Telecom said.
Shanghai Telecom said reasons it selected FiberHome optical gateways were their cost-effectiveness, because users can install them without any additional wiring, and their ability to allow users to watch HD video content anywhere around the house.
“We selected Celeno Wi-Fi technology for its superior performance and interference mitigation technology,” said Shihai Zhang, general manager of FiberHome.
Gilad Rozen, CEO and president of Celeno said the deal “reinforces our continued commitment to accelerate the deployment of wireless HD IPTV in China.” Landing the order, he said, “further validates the maturity and quality of the Celeno solution and technology.”
Rozen said Celeno’s “proven” video-over-Wi-Fi technology enables STB makers like FiberHome to produce broadband gateways that deliver “carrier-grade” video quality throughout the home with no new wires. Multiple channels of HD video can be delivered to Wi-Fi-capable CE devices such as laptops, TV sets and tablets like the iPad.
Celeno said its technology uses “transmit beam forming technology” to provide whole-home coverage. Chinese homes, it said, often present a challenge, with internal concrete walls that are up to 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) thick.
Its technology, it said, provides consistent HD performance with a zero packet error rate. It has interference resiliency and seamless radio channel hopping to sustain multiple networks in saturated neighborhoods. Traditional makers of STBs for pay TV such as Pace, Cisco and Motorola missed out on the order. So did makers of STBs with MoCA, HomePlug and HomePNA home network technology.
Separately, Pyramid Research said that by 2011, China will overtake Japan to become Asia’s largest fiber market, with 25.9 million fiber access lines in service at year-end 2011, versus Japan’s 25.2 million.
Pyramid’s projects that by 2013, revenue in China for fiber service will be $168.1 billion and pass Japan’s $166.8 billion.
It’ll pass Japan sooner in the number of access lines, however. Daniel Yu, senior analyst at Pyramid said, “China will overtake Japan in access lines in 2011 to become Asia’s largest fiber market with 25.9 million fiber access lines in service at year-end 2011, versus Japan’s 25.2 million.”
He said the rapid rise in fiber is being driven by a strong commitment from the government to deploy the technology. “Migration to higher speed, and thus higher-priced, fiber-optic connections, will ensure continued growth in China’s fixed service revenue,” Yu said. “The industry as a whole expects to spend $22 billion over the next three years deploying a fiber network, increasing total ports from 20 million to 80 million.”
Pyramid said China’s fiber networks follow predominantly the FTTB/N (Box/Node) configuration in metro areas and newly developed multi-dwelling units, rather than the more costly FTTH configuration. FTTx service of any kind is still considered expensive, it said.
“As demand for high-speed access increases, economies of scale for both the equipment and the CPE costs will increase the affordability of the service,” Yu said. “FTTx will see its share of total broadband accounts rise from 14.8% at year-end 2010 to 30.9% at year-end 2015. We also expect broadband net additions to top 19 million in 2010 and climb to 24 million by 2015 as fiber technology gains acceptance in the market.”
It looks like Celeno and FiberHome are in the right place at the right time.