New G.hn Home Networking Standard Has Significant Potential

There is a new home networking industry alliance on the block. The HomeGrid Forum aims to promote the work of the International Telecommunication Union’s G.hn working group in developing a new triple-wire standard for home networking. But many in the industry have been wondering where a new standard would fit in an already crowded market. The success of Wi-Fi for consumer-installable networks and the recent momentum for HomePlug and MoCA in service provider networks raise the question: why add another specification—as well as an industry alliance such as HomeGrid—to the mix? According to ABI Research director Michel Wolf, “G.hn—which has been under development for nearly two years—is intended to create a unifying standard for the different home network technologies, aimed at distributing next-generation service-provider offering in the home. We at ABI Research see several applications, such as multi-room high-definition video, that would ultimately benefit from the move towards a single MAC/PHY for multiple media in the home.”

Where would G.hn fit in the home network? ABI Research sees the infrastructure and technology requirements for service provider, whole-home media as unique. Successful service provider deployments of MoCA and HomePNA 3.1 in North America and HomePlug and UPA worldwide, suggest that carrier-oriented media networking technologies can assist in rolling out new services. The effort to build a higher-speed single specification for the three primary in-home wiring types (power line, coax and phone line) will provide a roadmap for next generation service provider deployment. “While it is still early, ABI Research sees promise in the efforts by ITU G.hn,” says Wolf. “Ultimately, if G.hn sees integration into carrier devices by 2010, we expect that in 2013 some 42 million G.hn-compliant nodes will ship into the market, in devices such as set-top boxes, residential gateways and other service provider CPE hardware.”