HomePlug & Panasonic work for Powerline standard

Powerline industry leaders, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic), are collaborating on fast in-home networks over electrical wires.

The collaboration will mean that Panasonic’s HD-PLC products, and HomePlug AV specification, will work together.

The two companies have merged their technical submissions to present a joint proposal to the IEEE P1901 Work Group for Broadband over Powerline.

The group is developing an industry-wide, powerline technology standard, which will enable the unification and expansion of the global powerline communications industry.

Powerline networking, which uses wall sockets and home wiring, is one of several rival methods for connecting PCs and consumer electronics at high speeds.

Such high speed broadband technology is increasingly important in the home with the growing popularity of high-definition formats.

Powerline networking is also being promoted for broadband itself, where so far it has failed to gain ground against DSL and cable.

HomePlug AV can deliver over 30M bps of throughput from most household sockets. A small adapter plugs into a socket and provides Ethernet or another type of standard connection on the other side.

The collaboration faces competition from the Universal Powerline Association (UPA), which is supported by some service providers and vendors.

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance’s membership includes Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Motorola Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

More than 10 million HomePlug products have been distributed worldwide.

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