HomeGrid: Believe It or Not, Another Physical Layer Home Networking Standard
Posted Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:06:19 EDT by Michael Wolf
Yes, another standard to add to the large collection of phoneline, powerline and coax standards. Since I am on the road, I have yet to get briefed by the folks representing HomeGrid, the new standard, but I will definitely be interested to hear how and why they decided to start a new standard later this week. One of the messages that pops out from their messaging and FAQ is they are essentially saying they are physical media agnostic, that they will work across powerline, phoneline and coax. I think that is great, but that is also what the folks at HPNA have essentially said (with the exception of powerline, but I am sure they will say they could make that work as well).
I will have more to say abou this next week. I do think that even 10 years after the launch of the Home Phoneline networking alliance, really the first group to try and use existing wire standards in the home for networking, we are still looking at ways and coming up with new standards to push content around the home. The addition of video to the mix, the need for connecting devices with a variety of OS's and processor types, and the hodgepodge of media formats and DRM protection schemes makes me think that the bigger challenges are more in the software and business side of the equation than in physical layer.