HomePlug/MoCA Reality verses G.hn Wet Dream

CurveHouse.com has a nice Home Networking 101 article explaining the options for full-home networks.

They point out that "Ethernet cable remains the best solution for anyone who demands speed and consistency", but your need the "wherewithal and the ability to competently perform all that is required to hardwire" your home. And while "Theoretically, wireless networking is the perfect answer to the hassles of Ethernet cable", but "wireless networking is erratic.".

The feedback on HomePlug was "we experienced no glitches, no delays, and no dropouts", but your mileage may vary. MoCA is "theoretically and, in our findings, practically superior" to powerline, but "is nearly twice as expensive".

CurveHouse.com got all this right, but at the end of the article they stopped thinking with the "G.hn: The Best of Both Worlds?" question. G.hn has a MoCA like RF feature, so the cost will be simular to MoCA. So when you use G.hn powerline, since it has RF, it will be  "is nearly twice as expensive" as the HomePlug device.

Also, why wait for G.hn, when HomePlug based products are available today that work on coax, powerline and phoneline.

Samsung and Skype add one more reason for a HAN

After LG and Panasonic announced that they have integrated Skype into some of their TV, Samsung says they have done the same.

These developments will drive more and more Home Area Networks. As mentioned earlier, this is a retail play as an add-on to the sell of the TV ("hey, how are you gonna connect that  expensivefancy HDTV to the Internets?").

update:
One thought. Does anybody know the percentage of set-top boxes have an Ethernet switch built-in?
One can assume that most cable services don't, but FiOS or ATTs offer could have.

Who wins when TVs can surf the Web?

The very professional G.hn fan website, Everywire, is reporting that More than 27% of TVs sold in January can surf the Web. This is based on a study from market research firm, iSuppli. This is a huge percentage and Everywire is right to say that "Connected TV are connecting the wired home network".

This development raise the question, if most high-end TVs being sold want to be connected to the Internet, who wins.

1. HomePlug AV owns the retail market in the computer aisle for powerline networks.
2. Monster is pushing HomePlug AV in the TV aisles
3. MoCA is also available for retail customers on the computer aisle, but MoCA is not so user friendly to install (i.e. good for geeks)
4. HPNA is not at all for retail customers as in many most cases in the US, customers have a cable modem which interferes with HPNA (cable modems are why MoCA was invented)
5. Retail markets take forever to develop. With HomePlug AV companies already entrenched in retail, G.hn companies have an uphill battle to take this on (not to mention they have no chips in 2010)

So, Who wins when TVs can surf the Web?
HomePlug AV.

Now there are two IEEE 1901 chips

It was no surprise when Atheros announced at CES their new AR7400 fourth-generation powerline chipset and that it was IEEE 1901 compliant.

Today Gigle surprised everybody with the announcement that Gigle's currently shipping chips can be made IEEE 1901 compliant by a "simple firmware upgrade".

Before this announcement, Atheros was clearly in the lead for bring IEEE 1901 devices to market. Not any more.

Wonder when the G,hn vendors will have any chips. Looks that they are at least a year behind IEEE 1901, so wait for CES2011.

And then there was 3--HomePlug AV gets a 3rd vendor of silicon

After the HomePlug AV market leader, Atheros (ex-Intellon), and the second HomePlug AV chip maker, Gigle, we now have SPIDCOM getting into the act with this press release for their HomePlug AV Pass-Through Reference Design. SPIDCOM seems to be going for the applications market with SoC/Linux on a HomePlug AV chip.

It will be great to see tests with all three chips together.

HomePlugAV/IEEE 1901 and IEEE 802.11n a perfect marriage

The pre-CeBIT press releases are arriving. Aztech and devolo are both marrying HomePlug AV (aka pre-IEEE 1901) with IEEE 802.11n wireless.

Aztech's press release just says they have a "Wireless-N Extender for its HomePlug powerline range of network accessories".

devolo's press release not only mentions their 802.11n/HomePlug AV product, but it also pushes their 500Mbps HomePlug AV/IEEE 1901 turbo product.

The ecosystem for HomePlug AV/IEEE 1901 products is getting wider and wider.

3D TV the next big thing?

Sony has just launched their new 3D Blu-ray DVD player. It is only "3D-ready" meaning it "can be upgraded to play Blu-ray 3D content with a firmware update available this summer".

Besides everybody having to change their recently purchased HDTVs, there should be and interesting impact on the home network requirements. More bandwidth for sure--anybody knows how much more? What is the impact of a lost packet?

Too many players new "Wireless Video Connectivity Report" study shows

Checkout the alphabet soup, (Bluetooth, UWB, IEEE 802.11, and 60 GHz. TransferJet, Wireless USB, WirelessHD, Wi-Di, WHDI, WiGig, and High Speed Bluetooth) from a new 2010 Study on
"Wireless Video Connectivity Report", by Research and Markets.

Not sure how quickly they will converge on a solution. And why is there no mention of powerline solutions.

ABI Research Projects North American Cable Home Network Winners; not mention of G.hn

The Gadgetress has a interesting comment on ABI Research's projection of 15 million next-generation set-top boxes in the market by 2014 using MoCA. While HomePlug AV is described as complimentary to MoCA in North America, there is no mention by Gadgetress of the ITU's G.hn solution for either cable or powerline.

Hot or not Hot

On the front page of Gigle.biz (way better than their new and way too long giglenetworks.com)  news section Gigle is trumpeting the fact that EDN Europe thinks they are HOT.. Congratulations, but..

In the semiconductor business, being hot, at least on a chip, is not a good thing.

Intellon had issues with their INT6000 running hot, but their INT6400 is definitively not hot--which is hot--they win a prize to from EDN Europe.

Hot, not hot, everybody wins.

Round-up of HAN Videos from CES 2010

Lots of videos from CES 2010 about Home Networking technologies.

HD-PLCs video includes the demo, but not much of a booth tour.



Their 2009 video is much shorted and certainly more sweeter.



HomePlug's CES video is a bit over produced (but when you have tons of members, you can adored it) and happily the video is half as long's as HD-PLC's, but has no show girls.



IOGEAR Wireless HD USB Audio Video was short, but only a tour of the booth.




DS2/HomeGrid had a nice (i.e. short) demo of their G.hn prototype. Not sure why the fans were so noisy or why nothing was plugged into the power-strip.

Poor Engineering Beats Poor Marketing Everytime

This DS2 video from two years about says it all about Intellon and DS2.

• DS2, great market communications, and stupid marketing.
•  Intellon, lazy engineering, but good marketing

The video is 100% correct in that Intellon's HomePlug AV chips do  not interoperate with their old HomePlug +Turbo 85Mbps chips. People hated that, but the market for HomePlug AV is so much larger Intellon got away with it.

DS2 had a 45Mbps chip which was only used (tested) for Access applications and never Inhome. After it went nowhere fast, DS2 introduced there 200Mbps chip. It did OK, got NetGear DS2 was 6 months aheard of Intellons 200Mbps HomePlug AV chip.

So, where does DS2's 100Mbps chip come in. The marketing giants of DS2 saw an opportunity in the incompatiable within Intellon's older 85Mbps and there newer 200Mbps chips. So DS2 marketing decides introduced a slower 100Mbps chip which can interoperate with the 200Mbps chips.

To say the least, DS2 did not ship many (any?) of the the 100Mbps chip. But it makes great market comm videos.

More on The wireless HD format wars

Over at the Siteroller Blog there is a great summary of where we are in the the wireless HD format wars.

"Despite promises that this would soon be standard and inexpensive (up to $100 for the feature), it's been a tough trip. Until recently it wasn't available at all in North America, and now it is mostly found using stand alone devices such as GefenTV's streaming devices."

Siteroller then goes on to summarize the different technologies and vendors and who is winning and loosing. But in the end his says.

 So, it's still too early to say anyone's really winning.
But the sooner these become reality, the better!