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After a multi-year brownout caused by technology hurdles, powerline home networking may be surging back into the marketplace.
But even as the newly formed HomePlug Powerline Alliance works toward an open-standards based technology, rival schemes put forth by private companies have some wondering if powerline networking will short circuit before it fully hits the marketplace.
Up to a year ago the technology had been written off because of noise issues and low data rates, according to Elliott Newcombe, director of product marketing for powerline player Intellon Inc. Intellon cracked the problem with a system based on Orthological Frequency Division Multiplexing, a commonly used scheme for digital transmission. Using a multi-tone strategy similar to DSL's dominant technology, the OFDM-based system that resulted could better route around chronic electric current noise, particularly when appliances such as vacuum cleaners and microwaves are drawing juice.
"We felt like OFDM has overcome a lot of the problems of the past," Newcombe says. "It allows us a very broad bandwidth-from 4 to 21 megahertz."
Clearing up powerline's shoddy reputation was another issue. So 13 companies including Intellon founded the HomePlug alliance this summer. The alliance staged a technology bakeoff to select one of six rival schemes as the basis for a new powerline standard, and Intellon won.
The alliance has since grown to 67 members, according to alliance president Alberto Mantovani. With a price target set at $70 per adapter card-compared to about $80 for the well-established Home Phoneline Network Alliance technology-the first trial of HomePlug's adopted technology will take place in the first quarter with 500 homes, mostly in the United States but also in Europe and Asia.
"We are starting to show we can probably change the picture-that home networking using the powerline infrastructure can be a viable way," Mantovani says. "Clearly we are getting much more attention."
To combat powerline's low bit rate reputation, the HomePlug standard has a guaranteed baseline connectivity rate at 1 megabit per second, "but the average data rate we have seen is between 8 and 10 megabits," Newcombe says. That puts it in range with other home networking schemes, including wireless 802.11b WiFi and HomeRF.
"I think it is going to evolve," Newcombe says. "At 8 to 10 megabits we can reliably distribute one compressed video stream throughout the home and simultaneous to that transmit data and audio throughout the home."
Upgrades Intellon is testing are pushing the data rate into the 100 Mbps range, Newcomb adds, "but that's a one to two-year milestone."
But HomePlug still faces some industry static, including rival proprietary powerline technologies that are in the works. One is from Inari Inc., a Utah-based firm that began as Intelogis, a 1997 spinoff from Novell Inc. Intelogis hit the market in 1998 with the PassPort Plug-In Network powerline product, but renaming itself a year ago the company repositioned itself as a technology supplier to consumer electronics.
Because of fundamental technology differences, Inari chose not to join the HomePlug initiative, according to Todd Green, director of marketing. Inari's system uses four static subdivided channels for data transmission. To get around interference, Inari uses phase shifting algorithms to pick the channel best able to deliver data and at what rate.
A homegrown media access control protocol melding elements of the 802.3, 802.11 and ATM standards directs the data delivery between devices. Green says that gives the technology a quality of service capacity to coordinate data routing.
Green claims Inari's system can better adapt the throughput to the device, feeding data at lower bitrates to less sophisticated devices such as home appliances equipped with lower-cost powerline networking adaptors.
"HomePlug is focusing mostly on PCs and is not thinking about the information appliances such as Web radios that don't need high bandwidth," Green says. "Our technology, on the other hand, can scale down to meet lower bandwidth and lower cost requirements."
Green says the "sweet spot" for powerline technology is the fixed-location, medium-throughput device-such as a screen on a refrigerator or a wall-mounted networking device. "I really believe we'll be able to beat the wireless on cost and we'll be able to get the throughput," he says. "But we haven't been able to convince analysts of this yet."
Industry analysts, meanwhile, say powerline home networking has some promise, but the question is whether it will make the consumer connection. Brian Riggs of Dataquest Gartner Group says the lead-time for wireless and HPNA home networking schemes is a factor.
"In all of those you have already established vendors manufacturing components and they also have OEMs actively integrating them into their products," Riggs says. But if the powerline networking players can pull together and establish some vendor relationships, "powerline networking would just take off in the home networking marketplace."
"I think that the theory and concept is fantastic," says Karuna Uppal, program manager for analyst firm The Yankee Group. "Obviously power outlets are pretty prevalent in houses throughout the U.S. The issue is really can they get it work as a high-speed solution that doesn't have the interference problems."
But the potential infighting is as much a threat for powerline networking as it has been for the rival wireless HomeRF and 802.11 WiFi technologies.
"That adds an additional level of complexity, in that you don't want competing standards," Uppal says. "In that situation it really does become who can get to market first with a product that is less expensive."
Mantovani argues Inari's proprietary technology will not have the legs to make it into the consumer market. "We're strong believers that proprietary solutions have a short life," he says. "So if you tell me yes, there is a potential competitor to HomePlug in terms of proprietary solution-yes, that is a reality. If you tell me Inari is a standards group supported by CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), I don't think so."
But CEA isn't throwing in with HomePlug, either. The CEA's R7.3 committee is working on powerline networking technology, but its scheme differs from HomePlug.
"I don't know where they are going exactly," Mantovani says. "And I'm not so sure that in the end it is going to be a different direction...most of the members-most of the companies working in that group are HomePlug members. I think we do have consumer electronics people on board if you look at our roster."
Inari's Green acknowledges that dueling technologies could prove a problem as powerline home networking tries to gain a market foothold. But he argues his company's technology offers the Quality of Service and scale that HomePlug will not, and that is important to electronics developers.
"We feel they value it enough that more of the developers will line up behind a technology that offers that," Green says. "It is something of a concern, but because of the many conversations we have had with developers, it is not a concern enough for us to abandon our technology in the market."
The HomePlug 1.0 standard is expected to be ratified in the first quarter of this year, and products should be hitting the market by the end of the year. That may give HomePlug a later start than other home networking schemes, but Mantovani says he still thinks the technology can gain a market share.
"Yeah, it's true. It's a little behind," Mantovani says. "That's another motivation to set it for 10 megabits per second only."
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