HDPLC and HomePlug are to Power Line Networking as.......

["David Yeend" <david.yeend@xxxxxxxxx>]

....VHS and Beta were to video content storage!

One of the interesting aspects of CeBit for me (besides the 103 inch LCD)
was the discovery of a little fight going on in the power line networking
world....that said the Consumer Electronics Power Communication Alliance
suggest they are promoting:

"Development of specifications enabling the coexistence
Between in-home PLC Systems
Between Access PLC Systems and in-home PLC Systems
Promotion of high speed PLC technologies in order to achieve world-wide
adoption thereof. "

On one side of the aisle were the home plug people, proud to be displaying
their AV spec product, on the other side was the CEPCA / Panasonic also
showing power line networking. Their demo showed one mpeg2 HD stream (not
sure of the resolution) along with 4 SD streams some data traffic and VoIP
-
all running fine but not using HomePlug! Enter HD-PLC and the new solution
designed from the ground up for distribution of HD video and other typical
home data distribution requirements! The demo was run under ideal
conditions
and when asked about noise the comment was that their technology does
suffer, which is also the case for HP. The HD-PLC technology uses a
different modulation scheme which apparently allows much sharper filtering
cut off rates so it should return higher bandwidths than HP when operated
in
the presence of noise - I guess there is no benefit where broadband noise
is
present.

The AV spec home plug product was on display - I did see some stands
claiming HD demos but did not get to ask anyone about them. Devolo were
there and their stand was buzzing. They were also showing ADSL2+ routers
which with 25Mbps connectivity are aimed at triple play service use.

HP and HDPLC will not work together - in fact if both are present on the
same power line neither will work!

>From my understanding the home plug people have the IT crowd on their
side
(including Microsoft) while Panasonic and Sony (founders of the CEPCA) have
the consumer electronics manufacturers signing up as partners! Just as it
looked to be getting easier......

Anyway with 2 options at least it looks like Mark will never have to worry
about enough Cat5 to the kitchen!

Regards,

David


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