HomeGrid Forum

G.hn: What's it all mean?

 A lot has happened in the last few weeks for G.hn. The PHY was Approved, the coexistence mechanisms achieved Consent and the DLL was deemed stable. The first semiconductor products were announced.  New IP has been made available for licensing.  And much more.  Find out what it all means by downloading the latest webinar from HomeGrid Forum entitled Wired Networking Inflection Point. 

Why G.hn is the best option for multi-wire networking

There is growing interest among Telco/Cable Service Providers in deploying networks that can take advantage of all the existing wires available in the home (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables).

Until recently, there was a number a proprietary technologies for wired networking, but each one of them was designed for one single medium (ie, one technology for powerline only, another for coaxial cable only, and so on).

Each of these technologies is fundamentally different from each other, so networking chips have to be specialized: For example, a chip designed to operate over coaxial cable cannot work over powerlines.

Why are the chips different? In many cases, the reason is simply that they were designed in separate groups, inside closed organizations, which took different decisions when choosing technical elements such modulation type, Forward Error Correction, QoS architecture, Security architecture, etc.

Continue reading "G.hn: reducing chip count by 50%"

Major Progress in Geneva, First Product Announcements

Last week, the ITU-T made significant progress on the G.hn standard -- Approving the PHY and architecture, advancing the DLL and providing Consent to the complementary coexistence Recommendation G.9972 (aka G.cx).  These moves were supported by service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, semiconductor companies and countries from around the world, and set the stage for G.hn to emerge as the single unified wired home networking standard.

Following the announcement of the ITU-T's accomplishments, several HomeGrid member companies publicized their support and first G.hn products.  DS2, for instance, confirmed its plan to launch its G.hn-compliant DSS9960 chipset next year.  Ikanos announced its support for the technology. And there will be many more announcements in the coming weeks.