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.

Xpike hits Wireless HDMI market

HAN Fan thinks that the cable replacement market is niche and observes it is a very confused market. But there are times when replacing a $10 HDMI cable with a $600 $160 pair of hot boxes might not be a good idea--like when you need to connect you laptop to that pesky HD projector on the ceiling.

Xpike has introduced a pair of  boxes that "transmit 1080p content up to 30 feet" using WHDI technology. The HDelight MSRP is $179.99, but on www.brite-view.com, it is available for pre-order for $159.99.

HAN Fan congratulates Xpike (aka brite-view)on the excellent price point for a bleeding edge complex product. If there is a non-niche cable replacement market, then these guys have product that will start to prove it (or not).

The transmitter is USB powered which is very neat idea. The receiver has a 5VDC jack, which should have been USB if the HDelighht was to be totally neat.

HDelight receiver

[If you geeks are using 802.11a or 5Ghz 802.11n, be  aware that WHMI based products can interfere with any WiFi on the 5GHz band. WHMI 2.0 is said to fix this.]

HDelight transmitter

And now for a bit of trash-talk from Xpike comparing wireless cable replacement technologies.

IEEE 1901 now the powerline networking standard

HAN Fan is hearing that this week the IEEE will do the final approval of the  IEEE 1901 specification make it the powerline networking standard. She's also been told that the approval is a done deal and to expect a press release real soon now.

With HomePlug already doing interop certification for IEEE 1901 between three chip vendors, the IEEE needed to hurry-up.

In-Stat pumping forecasts Wireless HD Video market

Pumping even more ABI Research's forecast of "two million 60 GHz chipset shipments in 2015", In-Stat is going all-in with their forecast of "wireless HD video-enabled device shipments...to about 13 million by 2014". From the article:

Brian O’Rourke, Principal Analyst.  “Most semiconductor players pursuing this space plan to move out from HDTVs to other CE devices, like set-top boxes, blue laser players and recorders, and digital cameras.”

The only problem with this, besides replacing a $10 HDMI cable with a $600 pair of hot boxes might not be a good idea, is Wireless HD cannot "move out from HDTV", is, as the article points out, "HD video-enabled device shipments [are] almost nothing at present".


This insightful study is available for $3,495 U.S. Dollars from the Insite website. HAN Fan is sure that Insite will make money on the study as the proponents of this cable replacement technology will surely use it to pump their numbers with VCs.

Sigma/Coppergate's Vapourware HomePlug AV chip performs better than real chips

Sigma is promoting "ClearPath Technology" to solve the noise problem powerline technology is open to. It is based on Sigma's MIMO implementation for HomePlug AV. Mike does a great demo video, but does not explain that he is afraid to send their chip to HomePlug's Interop Plugfest. Why is Mike so worried.

HomePlug Interop Plugfest - Sigma/Coppergate is MIA

HomePlug announced an Interop Plugfest for the vendors of HomePlug AV-IEEE 1901 chips.

• Atheros Communications is  there.
• Gigle Networks is there.
• SPiDCOM Technologies, the latest compliant  HomePlug AV chip vendor,  is  there.

But missing is HAN Fan's favourite MIMO enhancing HomePlug AV chip vendor, Sigma/Coppergate. Surely they would not be late with product for the "10 new customers for their HomePlug AV chip" Sigma's CEO announced during their Q2 earnings conference call.  They must have a great strategy to sell chips that are not shown to the public.