The HomePlug Powerline Alliance (HomePlug) is a
not-for-profit corporation formed to provide a forum for the
creation of open specifications for high speed home powerline
networking products and services. It also seeks to accelerate the
demand for these products and services through the sponsorship of
market and user education programs.
HomePlug's vision is to deliver Internet and multimedia from every
home power outlet and to enable the home through worldwide home
powerline networking standards.
The Alliance's mission is to enable and promote rapid availability,
adoption and implementation of cost effective, interoperable and
standards-based home powerline networks and products.
Technology
Introduction When high-speed Internet
access meets the high-tech home, the result is a market need that
has just begun to be addressed: Home networking.
Enter the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, a non-profit industry
association created to foster an open specification for home
networking products and services built especially to leverage the
worldwide pervasiveness of residential powerlines. Once that
specification is in place, the HomePlug alliance is dedicated to
encouraging the global acceptance of solutions that employ it. The
HomePlug vision is one in which a multimedia-rich Internet
experience is as close as the nearest home power outlet.
Who we are
The HomePlug Powerline Alliance
represents major companies in all segments of the home networking
marketplace:
Retail Hardware and software Services and content Semiconductors
Technology Consumer Electronics
The alliance's members include the companies shaping the technology
as well as those that will adopt it. They have demonstrated both the
core capabilities and the financial commitment necessary to develop,
launch, and market powerline networking technology.
Why powerline
With multiple outlets in almost every room,
residential powerlines are already the most pervasive network in the
world. As Internet use explodes, broadband access expands, and
consumers plug a new generation of electronic devices into the Web,
powerlines present a cost-effective, easy-to-adopt home networking
solution for consumers around the globe.
Market opportunity
Already, cable modems, xDSL, broadband wireless, powerline local
loop, and satellite technologies all bring the Internet to the home
at broadband speeds. Market projections for cable modem and xDSL
subscriptions alone show over 35 million connected users by 2003.
That's more than 15 times the 1999 total.
The number of multiple-PC homes is growing at a similarly startling
rate. The number of households with more than one computer will grow
at double-digit rates through 2002, while growth for single-PC homes
stays flat.
The math is clear: In ever-increasing numbers, consumers will want
to network PCs and other electronic devices in their homes, sharing
high-speed Internet access among all their connected products, no
matter what type. (One IDC estimate says more than 50 percent of
consumers with more than one computer will live in networked homes
by 2002.)
What isn't so clear is how that network will be built or how that
high-speed access can best be distributed through the home.
HomePlug's solution promises to open up possibilities for new
generations of applications and devices, providing unprecedented
benefits to the consumer.
HomePlug's approach
The specification the HomePlug alliance is developing will:
-
Be cost-competitive
-
Use the home's existing powerline
-
Offer high-speed connectivity at
Ethernet-class data rates
-
Allow consumers to connect PCs and other
devices conveniently, at any power outlet
-
Coexist peacefully with already-popular
devices that use residential power lines to communicate
(including X-10, CEBus and LonWorks)
The alliance envisions a marketplace in which
consumers will use the technology to share peripheral devices and
high-speed Internet connections, distribute audio and video, and
automate their homes, as well as for telephony, programming guides
and a range of other applications.
Powerline networking challenges
Home powerline wiring was not designed for
communicating data signals and only recently has the market demanded
a way to use them for high-speed data networking in the home. The
physical topology of the home wiring, the physical properties of the
electrical cabling, the appliances connected, and the behavioral
characteristics of the electric current itself all combine to create
technical obstacles to the use of powerline as a networking medium.
Conclusion
The HomePlug Powerline Alliance recognizes the challenge presented
by a history of technical hurdles and immature technologies,
combined with the lack of a single specification and the prospect of
regulatory issues.
But its members are confident that "history" is precisely
the right word. HomePlug's approach relies on advanced, optimized
algorithms, improvements in silicon production, and vastly refined
semiconductor technologies to overcome the data error problems
inherent in powerline networking.
The launch of the alliance comes as a clear signal that its member
companies are committed to meeting an unmistakable market demand for
a reliable, easy-to-use specification that can make the connected
home a reality - and committed to meeting it sooner rather than
later. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance is moving quickly to reach
their goal of enabling and promoting rapid availability, adoption
and implementation of cost effective, interoperable and
specification-based home powerline networks and products.
