HomePNA Blog

Carriers list VoIP, 802.11n, and HomePNA as most desirable in ONTs

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher

It’s always nice to see analysts report findings that confirm what you believe. Infonetics recently released report, “2011 Next Gen FTTH and PON Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey”, contains just such a nugget.

The report, which analyzes the results from interviews with incumbent and competitive operators in North America, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and Central and Latin America about their plans, drivers, pricing and product requirements for next-generation PON FTTH technologies, reports that carriers list VoIP, 802.11n, and HomePNA (HPNA) as the most desirable ONT features. The survey highlights increased bandwidth per subscriber as the main interest driver in next-generation PON FTTH technologies followed by the delivery of IPTV and broadcast video (no surprise there). Inclusion of VoIP, 802.11n, and HPNA is cited as evidence of the continued shift away from basic bridge devices to integrated residential gateways.

But if you are reading this post you probably already knew that.

U-verse TV Gains While App Puts Support at Customers’ Fingertips

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher

There I was, all set to write an award winning post about AT&T’s free Troubleshoot & Resolve app, a new (and free) on-screen TV application that gives customers access to self-support information and tools for their U-verse TV service. And then, whamo, out of the blue AT&T announced 2nd quarter results of 202,000 new U-verse TV subscribers bringing the total to 3.4 million. Even better, with 75% of those subscribers having triple- or quad-play packages, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for U-verse customers is up 8.3% over last year.

Reaching for my trusty slide rule I quickly ran the numbers and found that, much to no ones’ surprise, the less money per customer that you spend on support the more profit you make - and apparently the more customers you have the more obvious it becomes. A quick look in my college Economics textbook confirmed my suspicions. More customers and higher ARPU combined with lower support costs equals higher profit. Eager to share my discovery, I phoned a friend at a major TelcoTV provider. He was less than impressed. Apparently they plan it that way.

AT&T has long been using HomePNA diagnostics. I’ve written in the past about them using the diagnostics capability to monitor the performance of customers’ home networks from their central office (you remember – all that talk about yucky stuff like TR-069). HomePNA’s diagnostic capabilities – the ability to obtain valuable performance “metrics” including user data throughput, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), and Packet Error Rate (PER) for every path in the network - provide the most robust information on in-home network performance and form a key part of user support tools (they log the data for every service call). And the HomePNA diagnostics come for free – they are a product of the managed network architecture.

So naturally the Troubleshoot & Resolve app uses HomePNA diagnostics and adds new network-based resources to proactively troubleshoot the home set-up, diagnosing and hopefully enabling the customer to fix any problem with the set-top boxes and other home equipment.

G.hn - Out of the Closet

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher

Did you hear the news? The Broadband and HomeGrid Forums have announced  the first open G.hn chipset interoperability plugfest. This may come as a surprise to you, but apparently there are several companies ready to test their G.hn chipsets. (At least it’s a surprise to the people that aren’t employed by one of the 200 something members of the Broadband Forum and didn’t see the technical contributions leading up to the event). Regardless, it’s uncommon to see a new standard launched with multiple certified vendors and an operating certification process.The G.hn developers are delivering on their promise of a multi-vendor multi-media standard.

If you are wondering what the Broadband Forum has to do with home networking, read on. It seems that there are two ways for an industry standard.to be developed. In this context a “standard” is a technical document developed by an accredited SDS (Standards Development Organization) such as the IEEE or ITU.

The first way is for companies or individuals to come together in one of the SDSs and develop the technology. This is the way that the IEEE 802/11 standard (WiFi) was born. WiFi, the industry SIG (Special Interest Group) which promotes and certifies the features and performance of WiFi products, came after the 802.11 standard.

The second way is for companies to come together in a SIG and develop the technology.  HomePNA, HDPLC, and HomePlug are examples of this approach. The SIG members may decide to take the technology to an SDS and standardize it giving it the official “standards” stamp. HomePNA standardized two generations of technology under the ITU as Recommendations G.9951 through G,.9954).  The HomePlug and HDPLC guys standardized under IEEE P1901. (Historical note: MOCA, the “other” home-networking- over-coax technology, has never been standardized. Could it be that, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, they don’t want to belong to any club that would accept them as a member?)

What’s the difference which comes first?  Well look no further than my blog post “Why It's Important for HomePNA To Be Both A Standard and a SIG”. Start with ownership of the defining technical document. In a SIG it is owned by a few SIG members - often called the SIG Promoters. In an SDO it is owned by the SDO. There are other important differences but you get the idea.

Which brings us back (at last) to G.hn, The Broadband Forum, and The HomeGrid Forum. The G.hn standard arose the “first” way. A group of civic minded ITU members got together and developed a standard. After getting the standards work rolling, a number of those high-minded  companies went off and  formed the HomeGrid Forum, a SIG, to promote the ITU's G.hn technology. The G.hn movers and shakers looked up from their work and noticed that the Broadband Forum, facilitated by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), had been successfully running a DSL modem certification programfor years. Modems – or more accurately residential gateways which incorporate broadband modems – often (always?) feature home networking so it made sense to ask the Broadband Forum to help out with the certification. And the rest, so they say, is or will soon be history.

Two Recent Pieces on the Growth of IPTV

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

First, according to research firm Ovum , cable will continue to lead the global multi-channel TV market over the next 5 years; growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3% to reach 573M households by 2015. The forecast includes hefty contributions from digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and satellite which they expect to grow at average annual rates of 18% and 10% respectively reaching 211M and 419M households. Interestingly, over the same period, PTV will grow at a CAGR of 24% to reach 109M households for 8% of the total market. Not bad growth for a sector that didn’t really exist a couple years ago.

In the US (as you might expect) cable will continue to lead however it will lose about 10% of its current 60M households as “IPTV and internet-based alternatives continue to steal market share”. Jonathan Doran, author of the report, commented that “This is the continuation of a decline that’s already begun as households subscribing to cable dropped by four million between 2007 and 2010. This trend towards canceling subscriptions, or ‘cord cutting’ has arisen due to a combination of the economic downturn and the growing availability of attractive low-cost or free digital terrestrial and internet-based options”. I don’t think you call switching from a cable provider to an IPTV servioce provider “cord cutting” and since Ovum expects global pay-TV revenues to grow by nearly 40% I wonder where they are going.

Speaking of which, AT&T, the largest U.S. IPTV television provider (and HomePNA board member) recently announced that U-verse just had its best quarter of the year - citing the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year wireline consumer revenue growth - significant in view of the continued decline in traditional voice (POTS) service. U-verse TV saw a net gain of 246,000 reaching nearly 3M subscribers.

Notably the multi-service trend continued with over 75% of U-verse TV customers receiving triple- or quad-play services from AT&T (the average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for U-verse triple-play customers over $160). AT&T's has a huge footprint and U-verse can now reach over 27M residences.

3Q Results for Verizon FIOS and AT&T U-verse

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Interesting TelcoTV results reported by market monitor FierceIPTV which recently reported on AT&T’s  and Verizon’s 3Q results.

"AT&T said revenue and profits were up in the third quarter, driven by wireless growth and the continued strength of its U-verse business…with 236,000 new U-verse subscribers” and the “first year-over-year growth in wireline consumer revenue in more than two years.” ARPU (Average Revenue per User) for U-verse customers was about $160 indicating the high percentage of U-verse customers selecting triple-play and quad-play services.

Verizon’s results - not so great as “third-quarter earnings dropped 25%, as wireless subscriber growth slowed and landline operations struggled to make a profit. The company said its FiOS TV service continued to add customers, with 204,000 net additions, bringing its total subscriber base to 3.3 million…its largest net quarterly increase in FiOS customers in more than a year.”

Gary Schultz, principal of market analyst firm MRG commented that they are expecting U-verse to pull ahead of FiOS in 2012 and stay number one worldwide in IPTV subscribers through 2014. Gary noted that Verizon still enjoys a lead due to its earlier introduction. If you recall, Verizon picked cable MSO technology for FIOS (delivered over FTTH) which gave them shorter time to market and broadband access speed bragging rights but saddled them with TV technology that was not IP based. Gary expects the gap between AT&T and Verizon to continue until Verizon can upgrade its network to a true IPTV network, which will be costly and take time.  He also notes reports of AT&T’s aggressive marketing efforts.

I’ve heard reports of aggressive marketing too and my guess is that this, combined with AT&T’s larger customer footprint, will continue to fuel the growth.

Where’s the FCC's AllVid Going?

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

When I wrote back in May about the FCC’s AllVid NOI, I claimed that it would make “them more like us”. Why, you may be wondering, is that a good thing and does he have any idea what he is talking about? Good questions. Well it so happens, I did file a comment on behalf of HomePNA (to see the comment go to the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System, plug in docket number 10-91 and the name of the filer - which in this case is HomePNA).  In my humble opinion, we raised pithy and thought provoking issues that need to be addressed if the FCC decides to proceed with the proposal.

If you look at the AllVid comments you might see some common themes -- like don’t mandate technology, let the market decide, technology moves quickly, and of course, if the Commission does decide to move forward with the AllVid proposal, please select …. (you get the idea).  HomePNA’s comments were mostly based on the lessons we’ve learned providing home networking equipment for telco IPTV-based television service. Quoting from the Comment, “there is a very close correspondence between the IP/home networking architecture that telcos currently deploy for IPTV and the “second configuration home gateway” architecture proposed in the Notice. The major difference between the two is the addition of the AllVid adapter” (check it out, it’s on page 19). True enough but, to be honest, the FCC’s proposal is a lot more challenging.

Think about it. When a service provider (called a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor or MVPD in the NOI) installs a home network they most likely understand the application and requirements. They may have done extensive testing of the available technologies and probably have a good idea of the other services running on the wires. They may even have selected a technology like HomePNA that supports remote management and diagnostics. In the AllVid proposal the MVPD interface (the AllVid adapter) is moved to the edge where it becomes a node on the home network– so how does the MVPD know that the home network is capable of carrying the video traffic?

Well the FCC could mandate technology but this hasn’t worked out so well in the past. It could establish basic requirements but this also has shortcomings since technology tends to moves forward. Face it, new applications are invented everyday.  And there are some really good home networking technologies available today and more on the way (and after those there will be more even faster ones). These are all pretty robust technologies, at least in demo rooms. Marketing claims aside, all home networks are subject to house construction, the condition of the wiring and connectors, the correct installation of the equipment, etc. If you don’t believe me, ask the installers. There’s a reason that service providers – IPTV, cable and DBS - do the installations themselves (and it's not because they want to). There are solutions to this and other issues.  I think they will be adopted over time and it's important that they are.

TelcoTV Picks up Some Steam

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

AT&T had a good quarter adding 209,000 new U-verse TV customers to reach a total of 2.5 million. U-verse now passes 25 million living units (that is, the number of residences that AT&T can provide U-verse service to with minimal additional effort).  The numbers don’t tell the whole story since the Average Revenue per User or ARPU for IPTV customers is up as well.

So what’s the future hold for AT&T? The Multimedia Research Group (MRG) is forecasting AT&T’s U-verse to be 3.2 million subscribers in 2010 growing to almost 9 million subscribers in 2014; surpassing Verizon FIOS as the leading U.S. telco TV service in 2012.

Well there may be another contender. Fierce Telecom reported that CenturyLink has gotten U.S. antitrust approval for its merger with Qwest (the deal still needs to be approved by the FCC and Qwest's shareholders). Merged, CenturyLinkQwest would be the third-largest U.S. wireline carrier with over 17 million access lines and 5 million broadband customers across 37 states (with lots of them getting service over VDSL and fiber).

One of the advantages of IPTV is that, unlike cable and DBS, an IPTV service provider only needs one main head-end. With CenturyLink already offering IPTV to customers, the effort required to add Qwest’s broadband customers to their TV service should, to a large degree, be incremental.

Anyway, with AT&T and CenturyLink both deploying HomePNA home networking enabled CPE equipment for their IPTV services, it’s all good news for HomePNA equipment manufacturers.

TelcoTV coming to Brazil at last?

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

If you haven’t been following the status of TelcoTV in South America’s largest country, stay tuned. A recent item in NextTvLatam reported that the “ The Constitution and Justice Commission of the Deputy Chamber of Brazil passed unanimously Bill 29 final text, which, after three years, will be finally sent to Senate.” If passed, the bill will enable telephone companies to participate in the IPTV market. The bill is expected to be voted on by the Senate this year. The article quotes Deputy Jorge Bittar (PT) as saying "the effects of the project will be extremely beneficial because for the first time, there will be a clear separation between the regulation of the telecommunications network and the audiovisual content". HomePNA members such as Brazilian equipment manufacturer Cianet Networking are anticipating that their market will grow significantly with the passage of this bill.

What is AllVid and is the Set-top Box Really Dead?

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

If you follow TVs and set-top boxes (and who doesn’t) you’ve probably seen articles about AllVid, the latest brainchild of the FCC. The articles often refer to an April 29 report from IMS Research “FCC Likely to Ban the Pay-TV Set-top Box in Favor of DLNA & DTCP-IP-Powered “AllVid” Devices”.  Wow, should I be worried?  Why does the FCC want to take away my set-top box? 

Well this isn’t the first time the FCC has tried to increase competition by opening up the set-top. As Stephen Froehlich, senior analyst for IMS and author of the report writes, “The FCC views the new effort as a revision to its previously-failed efforts to create an open market for set-top boxes as mandated in Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996”.

So what’s going on? The FCC announced April 21 , that it has issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) and a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), as recommended in the National Broadband Plan, with the stated purpose of increasing innovation and consumer choice in the video device marketplace. Sound familiar? The FNPRM attempts to “streamline” (their words) the less than wildly successful CableCARD. This is a short term solution and not all that interesting, at least to me. The NOI is all about AllVid and a different story altogether. From a HomePNA perspective, making “them” more like “us” is a good thing.

If you are wondering what an NOI (such as AllVid) is, and why the FCC feels the need to use so many acronyms, read on. When the FCC intends to make a rule they may issue an NOI - essentially a trial balloon - to collect input from potential stakeholders. The NOI specifies a deadline which usually 60 days from publication in the public registry. An additional 30 days are usually allowed for reply comments. If the FCC decides to move forward it issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which, according to Wikipedia, is “a public notice issued by law when one of the independent agencies of the United States government wishes to add, remove, or change a rule or regulation as part of the rulemaking process”. The NPRM may result in the FCC issuing a Report and Order (R&O). An R&O may be amended using the same process.

AllVid is seeking a new path to opening up the pay TV set-top box. According to IMS’s Froehlich, however, unlike the original CableCARD “this time instead of fighting an uphill battle, the commission is in the much better position of riding a wave that was already forming. DLNA & DTCP-IP have proven to be attractive to US pay-TV operators as a way to inexpensively roll out multi-room DVR services”. I see AllVid bringing a bunch of significant benefits to competitive home networking technologies such as HomePNA, service providers and others. What are those benefits. I would love to discuss them and get further into the AllVid proposal but my typing finger is getting tired and the hour is much too late so it will have to wait for another day.

Coexistence on Powerline – Making the Right Moves

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

You probably heard that the P1901 draft just passed a sponsor ballot. Good news! The developers deserve a lot of credit for achieving a major milestone after five years of hard work. Like the ITU, the IEEE follows a multistep approval process and the group now has to sort through and resolve a stack of comments and then on to the next ballot.

One key to the progress is a coexistence mechanism that allows different powerline home networking technologies to share the same wires. This doesn’t mean they talk to each other. The coexistence mechanism, known by the catchy moniker of Inter-System Protocol or ISP, uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), a proven medium sharing technique. TDMA let’s the different technologies share the wire by creating separate non-overlapping time slots for each one.

The IEEE along with HomePlug and HD-PLC are taking the next step and jointly developing a certification program for ISP. Where does that leave G.hn which also operates over powerlines (as well as coax and phone wires)? The ITU is working on a similar standard - only it’s called G.cx (for coexistence I guess). When it’s complete, G.cx should be identical to ISP allowing G.hn to coexist on the same wires with other home networking technologies.

Does this mean they will all provide the same throughput? Nope. The technologies are significantly different and will probably perform differently on the same wires. Since they share the wire, the maximum speed of each technology will be lower than if it was the only network present so throughput may be a concern – especially for demanding real time applications such as IPTV. As they say, time will tell and the market will decide, however at least we can hope that this path will lead to products that will at least work in a mixed technology environment and that may be good enough.