Homeplug gets a standard and a bump in speed

PC Mag is reporting that the IEEE has approved the standard for powerline communications called IEEE 1901 and the HomePlug Alliance confirmed they are certifying it. PC Mag says, "IEEE 1901 essentially makes HomePlug AV a universal standard".

All this news was expected by HAN Fan.

HAN Fan was surprised to read that HomePlug AV now has a 500Mbps PHY rate AV+Turbo option while staying compatible with HomePlug AV 200Mbps-cool. Also, that all current HomePlug AV devices will interoperate with IEEE 1901 devices.

The speed increase to 500Mbps PHY rate is even before HomePlug comes out with the HomePlug AV2 broadband specification in 2011.

HomePlug AV Chip Vendors--and now there are four

Sigma's extremely stealthy HomePlug AV chip is now the fourth chip, after Atheros, Gigle, and SPiDCOM, which is certified by HomePlug for compliance to the HomePlug AV specification.

Before reporting this, a sceptical HAN Fan spent time to confirm Sigma's press release as they were MIA from the recent HomePlug Interop Plugfest. Also surprising were the VP claim to have "more than a dozen companies to continue building products with the company's chips" before the chip passed compliance and before any interop tests have been done--gutsy companies.

HAN Fan is even looking more forward to the price war that will come from the competition of multi-sourced standards based products. She now thinks a feature war would be nice too.

MoCA /G.hn come quickly. I need you. Signed Europe.

The European Commission’s latest household communications survey tells us that cable MSO's lost 8 million cable subscribers in a year between 2008 and 2009.

At this rate in 5 years time there will be close to zero cable subscribers in Europe. And there are some big time  talking heads who are talking about the same "cord cutting" happening in the Americas.

HAN Fan was already thinking MoCA's success  in Europe was already a mission impossible, but the way the MSO market is going, they better hurry to Europe.

What about the all singing and all dancing G.hn specification; which will work one day in some future on powerline, phoneline, coax cable, water lines, gas lines, and sewer lines (HAN Fan made-up the last three). G.hn chip makers trying to attack a successful incumbent (see HomePlug) or enter a shrinking  market (see coax)  does not sound very promising. But Broadband over SewerLines (BSL) is surely a good market for them in the coming years--HAN Fan notes that BSL is backed by Google.

1st Powerline Communication Standard is Approved

Seems HAN Fan got her predictions right. The IEEE P1901 WG got their draft approved by the IEEE-SA Standards Board. They say "On 30 September 2010, the IEEE-SA Standards Board approved IEEE Std 1901-2010. Final publication will occur early February 2011."

HAN Fan knows  that the IEEE is really shooting for publication before CES 2011 and they have a booth there only to promote this new standard.

HomePlug is already certifying IEEE 1901 chips. HAN Fan is looking HI and low for signs of life of a G.hn chip-now that it matters to her as it will never work with the three (Atheros, Gigle SPiDCOM) chips on the market. HAN Fan is sad for HomeGrid.

Voyeur K-micro joins yet another HAN forum

 In the HAN market, K-micro just likes to look---they don't have any HAN technologies, but they are members of all the major HAN technologies promoter groups.


MoCA, joined this week.
HomePlug, yep.
HD-PLC, no problem.
HPNA, sure enough.
HPNA++ (aka HomeGrid), oh snap.

And which of these groups K-micro has a chip or even IP for: none, zippo, ninguno.
HAN Fan is confused.