Netgear touts 200Mbps BPL for home networking

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 27 June 2006 02:35

Business IT - Technology

Netgear has launched a range of broadband over powerline (BPL) products designed specifically to tackle the problem of distributing high bandwidth low-latency traffic such as video and gaming around the home.

Netgear has released the 200 Mbps Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter (HDX101) and Kit (HDXB101) that "turn any AC electrical outlet into an HD-streaming, high-speed ethernet broadband connection- for real-time high-quality video, gaming and VoIP".

"We've seen great demand for this technology, as its simplicity is unbeatable," stated Kartik Gada, Netgear's product line manager for connectivity devices. "Consumers are requiring faster, more reliable, convenient and uncomplicated broadband connections throughout their homes, in order to support a growing number of applications like online gaming, audio distribution and HD video streaming, all of which require copious bandwidth."

The products are built on chipsets from Spanish company DS2, and offer built-in video QoS "for consistent performance with encrypted security, at unprecedented data rates, to seamlessly stream high-definition video throughout the entire home". The VQoS feature ensures that video and gaming traffic is prioritised above all other network traffic so that HD video streams are free of interruption from others using the network.

DS2 (Design Systems on Silicon) claims to be the world's leading supplier of the 200 Mbps BPL technology. Two industry groups, the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) and the European Union consortium OPERA (Open PLC European Research Alliance) have adopted DS2 technology in support of multi-vendor standard certified product. Both groups develop and support open standards based on interoperability, security and coexistence.

Around the world there are several examples of service providers turning to BPL to overcome the limitations of wireless. Last year Spanish carrier, Telefónica, purchased 30,000 powerline ethernet adaptors from Corinex to solve the problem of getting its DSL triple play service from the phone socket to where people want to watch TV in their homes.

According to a joint Corinex/Telefónica press release "A major obstacle for telecoms delivering IPTV has been sending the signal from the ADSL modem to other rooms in the home...[but] the new generation of powerline technology offers the speed and quality of service required to distribute video within the home."

The release went on to say: "Telefónica went through extensive efforts to research and evaluate all the different technology options available today and those still in development. Corinex's AV Powerline product was the only commercially viable solution enabling Telefónica to deploy their [IPTV] service anywhere in the home. Neither wireless nor other powerline technologies could meet their needs."

In Hong Kong last month, BPL technology developer Intellon announced that PCCW was using its products to "capture broadband customers unwilling to install new wiring in their homes". PCCW has over 800,000 subscribers, of which 550,000 have also signed up nowTV, the world largest IPTV service.

According to Intellon, its HomePlug with Turbo adapters enable a customer-installable alternative to running new cables along floors and under rugs to connect the PCCW broadband modem to computers, digital media adaptors and IP set-top-boxes in the home.  Allen Wong, director of product development for PCCW, said: "On all fronts, Intellon provided the best combination of user friendliness, price and time to market, allowing us to get a solution in place for our customers very quickly."

Taiwanese manufacturer Cameo Communications has just announced a partnership with DS2 to develop wall-plug format adapters and a variety of different consumer networking device applications to deliver high speed broadband access around the home. Cameo showed products including the SOHO-HPE2001 wall-plug adapter based on DS2 200Mbps technology during Computex Taipei 2006 earlier this month.

The wireless industry is fighting back. WLAN chipset developer Airgo Networks last month announced an upgrade to its multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology specifically to enable it to deliver multimedia content wirelessly around the home. It also announced deals with STMicroelectronics and Caton to bring products to market.

The upgrade, dubbed 'True MIMO Media' technology, is an enhancement of Airgo's True MIMO Gen3 technology and is claimed to "dramatically increase range and virtually eliminating packet errors even in the presence of interference".

Airgo envisages the True MIMO Media technology being incorporated into set top boxes (STBs) to enable them to distribute incoming video content around the home, or wirelessly access content stored locally on a PC.