powerline communication

The momentum in implementing Smart Grid technology is growing in developed countries.  Homes are being fitted with Smart Meters, home owners are installing advance connected solutions that monitor and manage how they use their electricity and gas. To further support this market the Wi-Fi Alliance and HomePlug Powerline Alliance have teamed up in a joint effort to promote the use of their respective technology in these modern digital home.

It’s almost a year since Atheros Communication acquired Intellon Corporation, a supplier of HomePlug and other powerline communication solutions, and today Atheros announced the release of four new reference designs based on Wi-Fi, HomePlug AV Powerline and Ethernet technologies. The reference designs comprises of a router and three adapters that use various combinations of its XSPAN wireless LAN, AMP™ powerline and ETHOS Ethernet technologies.

WD the developers of countless storage devices as join the likes of D-link, Netgear and others in launching a new powerline Ethernet AV kit called WD Livewire.  The new WD Livewire will act as a complement to Western Digital existing connected home devices, like the My Book World Edition and WDTV Media Player.  At data rate of up to 200Mbps the WD Livewire will have no problem streaming HD video into your home theatre transferring large files between devices or playing multi-player online games – all done without the need of running cables throughout your home.

The TWG (Technical Working Group) of the Powerline Alliance has announced that they are making steady progress in the development of Homeplug AV2 specification. The group said they hope to finish the specification in the first quarter of 2011 and that they expect Homeplug AV2 specification to deliver a 5x increase in performance over existing Homeplug AV solutions. The AV2 specification will be fully interoperable with current Homeplug AV and future Homeplug Green PHY and IEEE 1901 products.

This announcement coincide with the release of the of the AR7400 Homeplug AV and IEEE 1901 compliant chipset.  The new development kit is to accelerate the adoption and development of hardware and software among independent software vendor and smooth the intergration with other powerline Ethernet appliances and applications.

Atheros recently announced the availability of the AR7400 chipset. The new Powerline Ethernet communication technology is capable of using the existing electrical wiring inside the home to transfer data at up to 500Mbps, a capacity that is 2.5 times faster than what is currently available among Homeplug AV products.  Atheros said with this capacity household should be able to experience HD quality entertainment from every power outlet in the home.
 

Plaster Networks announced availability of a new networking solution for delivering music, videos, and other multimedia content using existing electrical wiring within the home. In response to the growth of streaming video, IPTV, and over-the-top (OTT) applications, Plaster Networks offers a reliable alternative to wireless networks, and is more cost-effective than installing Ethernet cables in the walls.

Intellon Corporation has announced that NETGEAR is using its newest HomePlug AV-based INT6400 chipset in its new XAVB1004 Home Theatre Internet Connection Kit.  The kit includes a four-port and a one-port powerline communications adapter.

Gigle Semiconductor, the leading developer of "any wire" multimedia home networking solutions, today unveiled the world's fastest and most reliable entertainment-grade networking IC, and announced that lead customer Belkin has selected the device for use in the company's recently  announced Gigabit Powerline Networking Adapters. Belkin is using Gigle's GGL541 IC and mediaxtream(TM) technology to give users an ultrafast HD  entertainment network through a home's existing electrical wiring.

Unicoi Systems, a leading provider of software solutions to the embedded device market, today announces the implementation of Unicoi’s Fusion TCP/IPv4/IPv6 in the next generation of digital home networking solutions from DS2. DS2’s Powerline Communications products, running Fusion TCP/IPv4/IPv6 Dual Mode Stack, facilitate whole-home networking through existing home wiring.