Intel joins powerline standards push

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 29 Apr 2008 at 14:36

Intel, Infineon, Texas Instruments and Panasonic have formed an alliance to promote home networks for movies, music and pictures using domestic wiring.

The four companies will market a standard that allows computers and televisions to be linked through existing electrical, telephone and cable networks.

The companies claim the first products based on the standard will be on the market in about a year.

There is already a common wireless standard to link home devices using Wi-Fi, but wired networks have the advantage of being more stable and capable of transmitting data at greater speeds. They also benefit from already existing within the home.

"Powerline is the most ubiquitous technology in the world. You have powerlines to almost every house in the world," says Intel's Matt Theall, president of the HomeGrid Forum.

"There's a huge market potentially for this type of technology. It can be embedded in DVD players, TVs, PCs, speakers - any home entertainment device."

The four leading members of the HomeGrid Forum say they will work with the International Telecommunications Union to promote, test and contribute to a standard the ITU is already working on, called ITU-T G.hn.

Their role will be similar to that played by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which helped promote a wireless standard and has certified thousands of products for wireless local area networks (WLANs).

Powerline technologies have been a dream for many manufacturers for a number of years, with German firm Devolo recently claiming to have doubled the maximum powerline speed by hitting 400Mb/sec.