G.hn gets a victory. But the P1905 war isn’t over.
The IEEE last week ruled against the vote to overturn G.hn’s inclusion in the first version of the P1905 standard that is being developed. The G.hn gang had appealed the vote on the grounds that it did not conform to established parliamentary procedures. The IEEE made a ruling on a strictly procedural basis that a vote by the working group to overturn the inclusion of G.hn in P1905 was not in conformance with parliamentary procedures.
This does not mean that G.hn will be included because the IEEE’s Communications Society (COMSOC) has to approve a formal change to the Project Authorization Request (PAR) to include G.hn. Members of the P1905 working group that oppose including G.hn will have a say in that matter. The vote to include G.hn was only done at the working group level and only won by a single vote. G.hn backers are consequentially waiting on the next vote to include or omit G.hn before making any formal statement about G.hn being included in the first version of P1905 that’s to be developed.
In any event, G.hn, developed under the auspices of the ITU standards body, will eventually have to be included because the P1905 working paper says P1905 will include other network technologies that are standards, not just the existing HomePlug and MoCA.
The P1905 working committee seems to have become an early battlefield for G.hn versus HomePlug/MoCA. It has been difficult to ascertain and report on exactly what happened in the various P1905 meetings. It has also been impossible to get attributed quotes because negotiations and maneuvering over P1905 and G.hn’s possible inclusion are still taking place.
We’ve been told by a usually reliable source that the vote to deny G.hn’s inclusion may have been invalid but the original vote to include G.hn was also invalid. Some suspect that G.hn backers are deliberately attempting to derail the entire initiative out of fear they will be excluded. G.hn backers have told us that if they are excluded they will develop a G.hn-to-P1905 bridge.
Another source told us that no matter what happens, this “desperate push” by G.hn advocates for inclusion in IEEE P1905 is a big admission and endorsement that the IEEE (also the overseeing body for Wi-Fi) and not the ITU, which oversees G.hn, is the nexus for standardization of home networking technologies.
In any event, as far as we at The Online Reporter know, an IEEE-valid vote to omit G.hn from the initial P1905 may have already occurred. The whole process is very secretive, and few people will speak publicly about it. The IEEE has strict non-disclosure rules.
It’s clearly the intent of the IEEE not to oversee the developments of standards that blatantly give one company or group of companies a competitive advantage. But of course, every company that participates in the development of what will become an industry standard wants to influence it to their advantage. That could take the form of using its patents or including technology that it’s been developing.
It’s also interesting that this has turned into a sort of battle where it’s the ITU versus the IEEE.
Schematic of P1905 with G.hn Included
Some Background
The proposed P1905 spec is based on the fact that the technology underlying all home networking standards is Ethernet. P1905 is a bridging technology between different networks. It’s a standard piece of software that allows chips of different network technologies to be in the same device and to talk with each other. It’s intended to make it:
- Easier for makers of devices like routers to bridge between separate P1905-compliant network chips such as Wi-Fi and HomePlug or Wi-Fi and MoCA. It’s bridged from within the device, making it easier to develop and build a HomePlug or MoCA adapter with built-in Wi-Fi.
- Less expensive for service providers to use a mix of powerline, coax and Wi-Fi networks in the same home. The consumer could do a self-install rather than having the provider send a truck and an installer to drill holes and pull cables whenever a network outlet is needed in a room that does not have a coax outlet.
- Better for consumers who would have a single user-interface for setting up security (encryption) on multiple home networks.
P1905 is not by itself a home network standard or a standard that includes a home network technology. It’s a method for different network technologies to pass data with each other — it’s a bridge between them.
P1905 is not a mechanism that allows networking technologies to coexist on the same wire such as P1901 did for HomePlug and HDPLC, two of the powerline technologies. P1901-compliant devices can operate on the same wire. What they cannot do, however, is interoperate.
P1901 deals with the coexistence of different networks on the same media, while P1905 deals with bridging different networks across different media — coax, powerline and wireless.
P1905 does not solve these problems:
- HomePlug and G.hn cannot coexist together on the same powerline.
- MoCA and G.hn cannot coexist on the same coax cable.
- A device with both MoCA and HomePlug will need two separate chips, making the solution expensive for many applications.
One G.hn partisan said P1905 will not make it cheaper to have MoCA and HomePlug in a single device, or even in a single chip. “Today you don’t see devices that support both specs because of cost, and that won’t change with 1905,” he said.
From what we know, here are the issues:
- P1905-compliant HomePlug or MoCA chips can be more easily added to devices that also need Wi-Fi.
- Unless someone makes a single chip with Wi-Fi and HomePlug, Wi-Fi and MoCA or all three, there does not appear to be any cost advantage.
- Gateways made with P1905 versions of HomePlug and MoCA could be used for a mixture of coax and powerline within the home. It would be easier to install, using powerline, in a room that does not have coax.
The final outcome remains murky. The working group’s next vote on whether to include G.hn may take weeks to occur. Or, it may have already occurred. More weeks may pass before the IEEE’s COMSOC approves the change to the PAR.
In the meantime, several G.hn backers are protecting themselves by developing a bridge to P1905 that would go to the ITU, G.hn’s standard body, for approval. Perhaps it’s a bridge too many. The Wi-Fi Alliance is said to prefer going through IEEE, the standards body that oversees its efforts.
We’re betting that if G.hn is included in the initial P1905 standard you’ll never have to read about it again. The issue will disappear in the black hole of standards’ jargon. Thant’s not likely to happen.
Some have asked why we have spent so much time covering P1905 developments. The answer is “money.” The market potential is big, bigger even than for chips for consumer PCs.
There are 300 million or so homes in North America, Europe and the Pac Rim that are candidates for one or more Internet-connected TVsets, whether built in or added with a smart-TV adapter. All TVs could eventually come with wireline home network already built in. Add to that 100 to 200 million Blu-ray players that the Blu-ray specs require to have a network connector. There are 200 million or so pay-TV STBs that will come with a wireline network connection. Then there’s 50 to100 million surround sound/stereo receivers that will come with a network connection. The 25 to 50 million consumers who want to get shows from iTunes will need an Apple TV. Smart TV adapters like LGs or Logitech’s version of a Google TV adapter also have to be connected. Add to that the 300 million or so home gateways that will connect the home network to the Web, and you’ve got some numbers that approach a billion or so. It’s a big market and billions of dollars are at stake.
Two things could upset the wireline home network apple cart: wiring every home with Ethernet cable, which is unlikely, or a wireless technology like Wi-Fi that satisfies the QoS and security requirements of the pay-TV industry and the studios.
Please keep in mind that no one has ever been fired for overestimating the potential of the Internet.
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