Connectivity

The question isn’t whether a networked system will be an amenity in the home of the future. The question is which form the networking will take. Household penetration of broadband access to the Internet—the driver of the home network today—stood at 30 percent at the beginning of 2005, according to a study by Forrester Research. By 2010, the market research tech firm predicts that number will jump to 62 percent, with nearly 50 percent of homes hosting a network.

Structured wiring and Wi-Fi wireless networks are the hot technologies today, enabling homeowners to share a high-speed Internet connection, link a single printer to several PCs, and view photos stored on one PC via a laptop in another room. Structured wiring requires a central wiring can where Category 5 data and coaxial RG6 video cable begin their long wiring runs to various rooms of the house. The structured approach is the networking solution of choice for new-home construction where cable can be run cost effectively before floors are laid and walls go up.

Wireless networking, on the other hand, has become the primary solution for existing homes, offering homeowners and apartment dwellers a no-new-wires option for sharing broadband access, images, and data files. The 802.11b Wi-Fi standard has given way to the faster “g” standard, with “n” and others waiting in the wings.

Modules like MicroLink’s dLAN Audio enable networked components to stream music throughout the house. But there’s another no-new-wires networking option that continues to work its way along a long-term development path. Called HomePlug, the powerline-based specification provides a common platform over which household devices—including security, HVAC, lighting control products, PCs, and consumer electronics—can connect within the home. HomePlug technology resides within a chipset inside the electronics and can operate over standard AC wiring regardless of a home’s age or size.

HomePlug products have been in the market since 2000 under the 1.0 version of the three-part HomePlug spec. With a data rate of 10 megabits per second, though, first-generation HomePlug networking products are now as dated as 802.11b wireless networks. They’re just fast enough to send a file to a printer from a connected PC, or issue a command to turn lights on or off, but they’re not robust enough to handle the high-speed demands of multimedia data sharing.

Enter HomePlug AV, the next generation of the HomePlug spec. With a data rate of 200 megabits per second and claims of improved immunity to electrical interference, HomePlug AV doubles the speed of Ethernet, offering enough bandwidth to send multiple streams of HDTV around the house.

A USB HomePlug adapter links PCs in a home network via standard household outlets. High-definition TV is used as the measuring spoon for data speed because it gobbles up far more capacity in the pipeline than music, pictures, or other data. The ramp up of HomePlug AV, which is expected to appear in product form during the first half of 2006, has lured new members to the HomePlug consortium of member companies. General Electric, Intel, Motorola, and Cisco’s Linksys, a major player in the wireless networking market, have recently joined the HomePlug Alliance. They join technology companies Sharp and Sony, cable giant Comcast, Internet service provider Earthlink, and the largest electronics retailer in the United States, Radio Shack. The alliance, representing a spectrum of PC, consumer electronics, and service companies, hopes to create what it calls a “diverse ecosystem” of products to support a worldwide standard for to-the-home and in-the-home connectivity.

“At Intel, we looked at the type of products that we expect to be in the market in the next five to 10 years compared with today’s networks that are pretty simple with a PC, a laptop, and maybe a printer,” says Matt Theall, president of HomePlug Powerline Alliance and powerline initiative manager at Intel. “But we’re seeing more and more people wanting to share content. They want to share pictures, MP3s, and content between PCs and other electronic devices.”

HomePlug adapters enable PCs to share an Internet connection over a home’s AC wiring. In addition, Theall says, people are seeking to expand their networks to include more electronic gadgets. “People want to be able to bring home a Palm Treo or an iPod and take the information that’s on it and move it from one source to another in the home.”

Video applications can make multiple uses of fat pipeline offered by HomePlug, Theall says. He cites Microsoft’s nascent IPTV (Internet Protocol Television Edition) for HDTV content and consumers’ desire to download content from the Internet to watch on one or more TVs in the house. “If you look at all the different types of products—PDAs, smart cell phones, digital set-top boxes, DVD players, plasma TVs—and consumers’ desire to network all those together, you need a lot more bandwidth than what’s available right now,” he says.