SmartGrid and smart energy are not our purview, but the HomeGrid gang’s interest in that market perked our ears because if its efforts succeed it will add credibility to their cause and reduce the cost of HomeGrid chips by increasing their manufacturing volumes.
SmartGrid is touted as being a way for power companies and consumers to manage and control their electrical usage — especially as to when electrical devices like washers can operate at the lowest cost. Only the power companies can operate a SmartGrid network that’s outside the home. However, a telco or cableco can operate a SmartGrid network within the home that uses powerline, coax or copper wire to connect to appliances.
Chano Gomez, co-chair of HomeGrid Forum’s marketing working group, said the SmartGrid market is small now but is predicted to be potentially larger than the multimedia home network market. Many wired and wireless technologies are competing for the SmartGrid. HomeGrid is the newest challenger.
Gomez, who is also director of new business development at HomeGrid chipmaker Lantiq, presented HomeGrid’s case at the recent Smart Home Energy Management Summit. He told us that HomeGrid, also known as G.hn, has four significant advantages in the SmartGrid market:
1. It was designed to be a SmartGrid platform, not a function that was added after the fact. HomeGrid developers were thinking about implementing it on a SmartGrid network from the very beginning. As an example, he said, devices with HomeGrid were designed to go in and out of sleep very quickly, saving money.
2. HomeGrid operates over copper wires and coax as well as over the expected powerline, which lets telephone and cable TV companies operate SmartGrid in the home.
3. Combining volumes from multiple market segments (multimedia networking and SmartGrid) will make pricing for HomeGrid more competitive.
4. HomeGrid was designed from day one to support up to 250 devices per box — although HomeGrid vendors can offer fewer.
To implement a full SmartGrid network, the power company will have to be involved because only it knows what electricity costs at anytime within the day.
Looking Ahead at HomeGrid
As we previously reported, Gomez said that semiconductor pre-certification work events are being held this month and next. They are not the final certifications, which are still being developed with chip makers knowing and working on their designs along with the development of the collateral.
Four chipmakers have committed to making HomeGrid chips: Sigma Designs, Lantiq, Marvell and Taiwan’s Metanoia Communications. Metanoia makes VDSL2, GPON and ADSL2+ chips that go in STBs that telcos install. Chipmakers Xingtera, Kawasaki and TangoTec are members of the HomeGrid Forum but have not yet announced chips.
The chip certification tests will be followed next year by interoperability tests for devices to make sure they can operate together on the same network.
It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to develop a standard.
Looking Ahead for Lantiq’s HomeGrid
In general, Lantiq and other HomeGrid members are aiming at selling to telcos. It’s a long-term process because the telcos are irrevocably marrying a home networking standard and investing tens of millions of dollars in deploying it. Competition from the cablecos puts the telcos under more pressure than ever. They cannot afford to make a wrong move in home networking.
HomeGrid members say they have built in functions that the telcos insist on, such as advanced remote management and diagnostics for the gear that goes into the subscriber’s home.
Gomez said that several system vendors are now designing systems that use Lantiq chips and expect those systems to be available by the second quarter, possibly before. He said every telco worldwide is looking for high performance networks for use in the home and on their external networks to offload wireless communications — tablets, smartphones and such.
As for Ethernet over Cox (EoC), Gomez said Lantiq finds it an interesting market as a possible evolution of DOCSIS. He pointed out that HomeGrid’s support for up to 250 devices will help in the MDUs that EoC is intended to support. He would not say more about Lantiq’s plans for EoC despite our pleas.
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