ITU G.hn Momentum Update

By Rich Nesin, HomePNA general manager and resident philosopher

In case you were wondering, G.hn is continuing to astound standards watchers by making good progress.  Work at the April meeting, held the week before last, focused on two areas – resolving the remaining comments on the “foundation” document and new submissions on the G.hn MAC.

 If you are not an avid G.hn fan, the history is that the group delivered on its promise to agree on a foundation document by last December (in other words, the group agreed that the document was mature enough for designers to start designing).  The foundation document defines most of the PHY (the part of the standard closest to the coax, phone wire or powerline media that deals with esoteric stuff like encoding) and parts of the MAC which is the control part of the standard. 

 The consent in December triggered a standard ITU comment period which is where the remaining details are ironed out. Last meeting the group made good progress wrapping up the remaining comments on the foundation standard and also agreed on a lot of MAC submissions.  We think that prospects look good for consensus to start forming on the final standard during the next meeting which will be held May 10 through May15 in Geneva.