HomePNA Blog

IEEE P1901 Has a Draft Standard

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Well the IEEE P1901 Working Group certainly got its act together. Last week they approved the first IEEE P1901 Draft Standard with more than an 82% majority -- which represents some great consensus building.

This doesn’t mean that all the work is done but it certainly is a big step in the right direction. According to Wikipedia, some P1901 watchers attribute this to inclusion of the ITU G.hn MAC as one of the supported MACs (yes, one of them -- P1901 still carries a lot of baggage) but it’s not clear to me whether that’s a done deal or not. I heard there is still some work to be done on the MACs and of course the draft standard has to go through the IEEE’s letter ballot/comment period/resolution process to resolve any open issues. Comments are resolved at P1901 meetings and the next opportunity will be the Boston meeting at the end of October).

Standardization is good for the industry. That’s why HomePNA decided to standardize its technology under the ITU years ago. It levels the playing field and insures that the technology is available to everyone. The market will decide the winners.

AT&T 2Q U-verse Results Just In

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

AT&T's second-quarter results - just in - reported “continued strong growth in AT&T U-verse TV subscribers with a net increase of 248,000 to reach 1.6 million in service.”  The release also reports that more than 75% of the U-verse TV subscribers choose a triple (with broadband and voice) or quad-play (with broadband, voice and mobile) option.

Since a HomePNA network is installed in each of those houses it's not only great for AT&T but for HomePNA members.  It also provides continuing validation for the case we have been making about the value of bundled services. 

And while we are on the subject of bundled residential services, Kurt Scherf from Parks Associates has released a new free whitepaper, IPTV and the Digital Home,  that discusses the success of TelcoTV. Parks forecasts the number of Telco/IPTV subscribers to grow from around two million households in 2005 to over 35 million by the end of 2009 and addresses the question of why consumers might choose TelcoTV over more traditional video-centric offerings such as cable or satellite.

I like Parks' whitepapers. They focus on residential technologies and combine quantitative and qualitative data from all sides: consumers, manufacturers and service providers. “What has spurred this growth? The lesson from the significant increase in telco/IPTV subscribers over the past few years is that consumers choose to switch service providers for a variety of reasons and not necessarily to get that one “killer application”. When asked why they plan to switch providers for television services (among other services), consumers show a variety of churn triggers. They are about as likely to indicate that they’ve grown disenchanted with their current provider, that they’re expecting a significant up-front pricing deal, or that they expect better customer service as they are to indicate a desire for new features not available from their current provider.”

The accompanying chart shows money as a major but certainly not only motivator. “There are a variety of service features that, when implemented, could entice consumers to pick one provider over another. IPTV/telco service providers have a head start in offering some of these elements, which go beyond traditional TV”.  Customer service is on the chart and "Telcos find themselves in the unique position of having a comparatively better reputation than their competitors for their customer support practices".  HomePNA's remote management and diagnostic capabilities certainly play to that strength and promise enhanced capabilities for service providers that utilize them. The list, which includes other soon gotta-haves, goes on...

Verizon FiOS Tweets The Home Network

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

Verizon is certainly making points with FIOS TV. Even though they basically provide cable TV over fiber and not IPTV, Verizon does install a, shall we say, non-HomePNA existing wire home network (OK, so it’s MOCA) when they deploy FIOS TV. Inside the home TV programs are carried over the coax as though they were provided by a cable company – which is to say without using IP. Verizon does use IP and the home network for VoD; and now for other stuff too.

As we blogged back in March, Verizon has officially announced some major new additions to its FiOS TV' service - the Widget Bazaar applications store, which includes a Facebook widget, a Twitter widget, and Internet Video on TV. Verizon also plans to have an open development platform so the hordes of programmers churning out Apple iPhone widgets can also write interactive FIOS applications made available through a widget bazaar (similar to the Apple App store - although I understand the offerings will be more controlled). And don't expect them to be clones of the applications you run on your PC or smart phone.

So add these to your over-the–top TV pleasures courtesy of IP and a home network: Twitter, Facebook, ESPN Fantasy Football and.... You'll find them in your FIOS TV Interactive Media Guide. So Tweet your most profound thoughts about the deep reality show you are watching. And Verizon says they will be releasing its Software Development Kit (SDK) soon so stay tuned for dozens more applications.

HomePNA Shipments Hit 10M and Why

By Rich Nesin, General Manager and Resident Philosopher, HomePNA

When you see an article by Rami Verbin, Chief Technical Officer at CopperGate Communications, it’s well worth the read.

In the article, entitled “HomePNA: No New Wires”, Rami discusses the convergence of TV and IP enabled broadband-delivered digital entertainment and communication inside the home. “Consumers are spending more time watching TV and Internet video … The question is how do consumers easily route entertainment throughout their entire house?”

If you’ve been following this blog you can probably guess the answer is “by using existing phone or coax wiring”. The article explores the distinction between home networks and home entertainment networks, outlines trade-offs of various approaches, and then goes into the technical details of HomePNA explaining why the technology is especially well suited to this application and the integration of HomePNA into consumer devices.

We love validation and some appeared today in an email from InStat announcing a new report “North American Households with Home Networking over Coax & Phone Wiring to Double in Two Years”. According to InStat, “Nearly 2/3 of consumer respondents from In-Stat’s survey expressed an interest in watching Internet Video on their TV” and “two segregated home networks have been evolving– a service provider-centric network, and a PC-centric network. Each is leveraging different business models and technologies.”

And while we are on the subject of rapid service-provider-deployed-entertainment-home-network-market-growth (try saying that three times fast), after months of hint-dropping, Coppergate recently announced that it has shipped over 10 Million HomePNA chipsets. The compelling benefit of HomePNA technology and existing wire home networking was well summarized by Kevin Hastings, Chief Architect, Digital Broadcast Services at Bell Aliant when he said “CopperGate’s HomePNA technology helped Bell Aliant cut install times by more than 30 percent.” “Shorter install times helped us reduce our customer wait time for installation from a month down to the next business day. This has given us a competitive edge in this market.”