The certification process for nVoy, the operating brand name of the IEEE P1905 intercommunication standard, has been set in motion, with National Technical Systems (NTS) in the US being chosen as the initial authorized test lab.
In March, the IEEE 1905.1 standard for interconnection between Wi-Fi, HomePlug Powerline and the MoCa coaxial cable system was ratified and published, but it has taken quite a while to get a compliance process in place for the spec, now called nVoy. However, the test system has now been verified against several silicon platforms and NTS will validate interoperability and compliance to the specification. This is a new departure for a 50-year old technical organization which is not a final standards authority, although it does dynamic frequency selection testing services for manufacturers of all 802.11 variants.
The idea is that these three technologies will become the hybrid home LAN, with existing coax being the fast home superhighway, powerline performing that job where there is no coax, and Wi-Fi supporting final delivery, given that most devices come with an onboard Wi-Fi chip. This may come too late for major US home gateway deployments, which leaked RFPs indicate to rely almost entirely on more powerful modern Wi-Fi, although they come with in-built MoCA connections too.
The nVoy Certification program will be available to members of the three relevant associations – HomePlug Alliance, Wi-Fi Alliance and MoCA – and will require PHY/MAC certification from the appropriate alliance as a prerequisite. The first public demonstration will be held at Broadband World Forum this month, with nVoy promising single push-button operation for security integration, automatic configuration of Wi-Fi security keys over powerlines, and network topology discovery.
This alliance makes it immediately tough for anyone in the G.hn camp to respond. The HomeGrid Forum, which combines the support groups for the HPNA and G.hn technologies, has consistently said that it will seek membership of the IEEE P1905 committee for its two standards, and that it will build its own links to the related technologies ‘ Wi-Fi in particular – in order to make the networks easy to connect to one another.
Our sister publication Faultline believes G.hn may find no design wins in the US, even at its great supporter AT&T, simply because very few operators will want to convert to an untried wired technology at a time when they are thinking of getting rid of wires. But that logic goes as much against new installations of nVoy as it does against G.hn.
The truth is that the new standard does not create a single network in the home. It is neither a mesh architecture, nor does it include a ‘best route’ calculation, splitting messages to go over multiple routes on different technologies. At present communications can go over Wi-Fi or MoCA or HomePlug, and a route can be set up which uses two or more of these technologies, but there is a long way to go before P1905.1 gives way to hyper-efficient home-wide communication.
Such systems will need to be able to work out the best route for different types of data around a home, not just working between the three protocols, but also selecting the right channel and right spectrum for Wi-Fi (where dual-mode Wi-Fi exists), before it compares that to the others. Any device will then also have to make calculations about which Wi-Fi access point to use, effectively making that a dynamic selection, so that it becomes a mesh.
It may be a long way to go to turn these three technologies into a unified platform, but they do help two of the most powerful Wi-Fi and home networking chip suppliers, Broadcom and Qualcomm Atheros, to freeze out rival standards. Back in June, Broadcom announced new SoCs which include HomePlug AV2 with full MIMO sitting alongside the new 11ac version of Wi-Fi. Both technologies are faster and cover more of the home than their prior versions. Broadcom, which apparently has taken the lead in 11ac as measured by number of boxes announced with it in, seems intent to do the same in HomePlug. Expect Broadcom to be close to the front of the queue to prove P1905.1 compliance for these chips.
In July Qualcomm Atheros said it would be doing much the same, offering a powerful HomePlug AV2 chip aimed at embedded CE manufacturers, like TV makers, but has yet to see this through. It also said that it has over 25 design wins for the P1905 version with equipment vendors, and trials with a number of US and European telcos.