HomeGrid said at IP&TV World Forum this week that its G.hn ‘no new wires’ technology, aimed to work with powerline, coax or twisted pair, will immediately kick out Homeplug from all US BestBuy stores, as soon as chips are ready. It also said that the technology is destined for installation within AT&T’s U-Verse IPTV service.
There were already two chips claimed to be shipping in samples at the show from Sigma and Lantiq and those and others would go into a Plugfest in Q2 in order to establish interoperability between different vendor’s chips. In Q3 Homegrid reckons that devices with the chips in may begin shipping.
There is always dogma between competing wiring standards in the digital home, and there has been constant pressure on G.hn to either conform with Homeplug standards, or with the IEEE 1901 power line standard, which is based loosely on HomePlug. Interestingly HomeGrid reckoned that its powerline side had been shown working at 300 Mbps, far slower that the rest of the wired mediums, while 1901 is claiming something closer to 500 Mbps.
However Homegrid was happy to say this week that AT&T had not only supported the development of what is seen as a successor to HPNA, but has already made the decision to switch to it and has already put out RFPs which have included G.hn. We’ll see.