The new buzzword in wired networking is G.hn, pronounced as "G dot hn".
I know, it does add another word to the alphabet soup of technologies, but I do think that it solves a fundamental lingering problem.
Our homes have various types of wiring available today; these constitute power, cable, phone, etc. The problem is that all of these satisfy their own purposes. The technologies today are fragmented; big time! There are MOCA (adopted in Verizon's fiber network) and HomePNA (AT&T's U-Verse network is based on this) that use coaxial wiring for CPE devices. However, there's no 1 wiring technology that can provide ubiquitous connectivity for CPE devices.
G.hn strikes at the heart of this issue and is the result of International Telecommunication Union's (ITU-T) G.9960 standardization project. It provides a unified wired networking technology that operates over almost all types of in-home wiring.
ITU-T recently ratified G.hn specification. The approved specification contains the Physical (PHY) and architecture portion of the standard. IEEE Communications Magazine recently published a paper, available for download, which describes an overview along with an architecture description. The Data Layer can use a number of existing components provided by Wind River's Advanced Networking Technology.
Harnessing the existing home wires and offering services on top of them with enhanced security and architectural capabilities of G.hn will mean significant reduction in the CAPEX and increase in ARPU's for service providers.
The good news is that there's already an ecosystem of semiconductor and software companies working to support G.hn. Some of these can be found at HomeGrid Forum's member page.
I believe that the war's on for THE in-home networking solution. Does G.hn get the crown?
Nikhil Chauhan is a Senior Product Management professional. Having worked and lived in NA, Europe and APAC; he defines technologies that serve cutting-edge vertical industries including digital living, consumer, networking, M2M and industrial. A graduate of Henley Business School at the University of Reading, Nikhil holds a MBA and a Bachelors of Engineering.
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