Bringing it all back home: the next broadband frontier is the home, thanks to the rise of the high-speed Internet and the growing popularity of Wi-Fi. Most of the hardware to make it happen is already here, and home networking is seen by many analysts as the next step up the broadband value chain

Telecom Asia, Nov, 2004 by John C. Tanner

However, Wi-Fi isn't always the ideal home networking solution for every home, says David Grubb, Motorola's VP of business development for the consumer/enterprise solutions division.

"In the EU, for example, more homes are made of stone and concrete, so Wi-Fi isn't always the best option to connect the network," he says.

Consequently, the unifying theme for home networking efforts has been "no new wires"--not as in wireless, necessarily, but as in using existing wiring in the home, Grubb says.

"It's about leveraging what's already there in the consumer's home, whether it's the phone wiring, or the coax cables or even the electricity wiring."

There are already several industry standards to choose from in this regard. The Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA), for example, has developed a specification for home networking that uses existing phone wires. The idea is similar to DSL in the sense that ordinary phone wiring can simultaneously support POTS voice, broadband data and home-network traffic up to 128 Mbps (under the latest version). Just plug your appliances into a phone jack, and off you go. The main limitation, of course, is the number of phone jacks in the home (usually less than five, often maybe two or three, depending on how old the house is).

Powerline is another option, with groups like the HomePlug Alliance pushing standards that allow OFDM-based home networking via electricity wires. With more power plugs in most homes than phone jacks, HomePlug has an advantage over HomePNA, but it has also been hindered by competing technologies, the wide variety of power regulations in different markets, the ongoing resistance from consumers who can't get their head around the concept of plugging a modem into a power socket, and the fact that electrical wiring in the average home is a hostile environment for data. Interference, noise and signal attenuation are constant problems for powerline-based networks.

Newer networking coalition efforts include the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MOCA), formed at the start of this year, which aims to enable seamless interconnection of devices such as TVs, digital set-top boxes, DVRs, DVD players, digital VHS, CD/MP3 players and PCs over existing coax cabling. In essence, MoCa wants to be a coax version of the Wi-Fi Alliance, developing specs and certifying interoperability for such devices.

Such standards are not mutually exclusive--both MoCa and HomePlug see their efforts as providing backbone support for Wi-Fi access points, for example. ZigBee is another wireless networking standard for embedded low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products that add sensing capabilities to home networks. (See "The home network defined", page 20)

Sharing content

But there's more to home networking interoperability than the backbone and the devices. Another issue is content distribution, which is seen by many as one of the major functions of home networks, says Mike Wolf, principal consumer connectivity and content analyst with InStat/MDR.