October 23, 2009

Entropic Communications is partnering with PLC chip maker Intellon to boost the availability of home networking solutions combining coaxial cable and power line communications, Anton Monk told us yesterday.  He's VP of technology at Entropic and a founding member of the board of directors at MoCA -- the Multimedia over Coaxial Assn.

          “The right convergence of power line and coax networking, we believe, is HomePlug and MoCA -- because of the backward compatibility” with the installed base, he added.  Intellon's 200 mbps PLC chipset won a “bake-off” to become the basis of the HomePlug AV standard.

ITU-T's 1 gbps G.hn proposed standard for home networks “doesn't bring anything new to the table,” said Monk.  “MoCA and HomePlug have next-gen standards in the works that are backward compatible with their respective current standards and are higher performance than G.hn in a shorter timeframe.”

Entropic's work with Intellon, along with Monk's comment, amounts to the third knock in roughly three weeks for G.hn.

Participants in a smart grid interoperability standards roadmap workshop held late last month questioned the viability of G.hn (SGT, Sep-30), though NIST included it in the draft roadmap (SGT, Sep-28). 

The folks working on the IEEE P1901 200 mbps PLC interoperability standard that includes a PHY layer for HomePlug and one for Panasonic's (Matsushita) PLC, recently dropped the placeholder for a third PHY layer meant to support G.hn, HomePlug Powerline Alliance President Rob Ranck told us earlier this week (SGT, Oct-20).

          G.hn uses power line, cable and phone lines to deliver full-premises 1 gbps networking for entertainment, energy applications and other residential components of the smart grid.

P1901 essentially puts a “roof over HomePlug AV and Panasonic HDPLC,” Monk explained.  “As far as Entropic is concerned, we think HomePlug AV is the right solution” for power line.

Wi-Fi chipmaker Atheros Communications recently bought Intellon -- Entropic is a fabless semiconductor firm focused on the entertainment business -- and MoCA has a working group looking into the smart grid and has asked NIST to include it as a standards body in the smart grid interoperability roadmap. 

The next set-top boxes will have internet connectivity, said Monk.  “The router will need access to the set-top box.  Wherever the router is, there will be a MoCA connection to coax.  The smart grid will be IP based.  It will connect to the internet connection in the home which will be connected to [power-consumption] display devices in the future.”

Can it compete with G.hn?

“The critical mass around the G.hn standard is tenfold the critical mass around other proprietary special interest groups promoting specifications for home networking over power line, coax or phone line -- and the same is true for access power line communications as a smart grid application,” DS2 CEO Jorge Blasco told us this week (SGT, Oct-20).

The data link layer of G.hn will gain final approval in May, ITU said last week (SGT, Oct-19). 

One problem with G.hn is it “specifies operation on coax in low frequency band,” said Monk.  “When you have ‘power line' running on a cable -- and not even necessarily networking -- and it runs by a coax outlet, you get significant interference that comes from devices on the power line” such as dimmers, Monk said.  “While you can claim you're addressing power line and coax, interference can be unacceptably bad and you may have to do a lot of remediation in the home.”

MoCA, by comparison, only addresses higher frequencies on the coax and Entropic is now working with Intellon to show “we can have coexistence of power line and coax with no interference.”

          One problem with P1901 is it “has not been able to converge into a single PHY/MAC specification,” Blasco said earlier this week, referring to its dual HomePlug and Panasonic PHY layers.

          G.hn offers single PHY and MAC architecture and looks to consolidate all wired networking -- power line, phone line and coaxial cable -- under the same unified umbrella.

          Verizon sided with MoCA and HomePlug AV while AT&T is cheering for ITU-T and G.hn, Monk reported.

HomePlug plans to develop a “super-lightweight version of HomePlug AV, called HomePlug Green PHY that addresses connectivity of the smart grid for the home” and will be marketed to appliance makers and utilities that want to add smart grid networking “for very low cost,” Ranck noted earlier this week.