Epigram, Lucent Team Up on Home Networking Standard

Electronic News, April 5, 1999

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group and Epigram, Inc. said they will enter an agreement to cross-license intellectual property and to collaborate on a proposal for the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance's 2.0 specification.

The specification calls for the networks running over in-home phone line infrastructure to run at speeds of at least 10 MB per second and to be backwards compatible with the current 1.0 specification, currently held by Tut Suytems.

Epigram is widely considered the front runner in the competition for the specification, though Tut in recent months announced a collaborative effort with broadband chipset vendor Broadcom. A third company, CP Clare, is also vying for the standard with its own technology.

A recent study by the Cahners In-Stat Group estimates that more than 20 million homes will have more than one PC by the end of this year, making a market for home networking technology viable.

The agreement blends Lucent's strengths in the areas of system-on-a- chip, communications semiconductor, and networking with Epigram's expertise in VLSI (very large scale integration) architecture and high- speed data communications, the companies said in a joint statement.

Both companies will develop products independently of each other, based on the final specification adopted by the HomePNA. Products certified by the HomePNA are expected by the second half of this year, with an eye toward holiday sales.

Lucent recently announced that it is developing digital signal processor (DSP)-based modem and local area network communications solutions for the home networking market space. The company's analog and digital modem chip sets connect home networks, which use local area network technology, with wide area networks linking telephone central offices or Internet service provider offices. The new products will be marketed as high-speed additions to Lucent's Home Wire networking product line, which was launched last year. Epigram plans to offer products later this year for home and small business networking using its InsideLine technology.