2008 Year in Review: Doors open to home networking

Home networking is not a technology segment that is exclusive to IPTV. Service providers of all types are looking to leverage improving bandwidth service to the consumer home to a much greater extent than ever before. IPTV is one of the services whose potential application and value to the customer could be vastly increased through the creation of state-of-the-art home networks in which content is easily swapped, shared and copied between different networked devices. If the home theater was the must-have household entertainment item earlier this decade, the broadband home network could become the must-have for at least the next few years.

Numerous home networking announcements caught our attention in 2008. The sector is especially important to telcos looking to offset landline losses. They have caught onto the idea of becoming the IT department for the consumer home at a time when multiple new in-home wiring technologies are able to make the once-theoretical home network really possible. And though it is believed that most service providers will use multiple home network technologies, the International Telecommunications Union recently made great progress on an industry standard for home networking called G.hn.

Related articles
The ITU just reached a major milestone with G.hn [1]
Telus went with CopperGate for home networking [2]
Several telcos have adopted HomePNA [3]
MoCA technology also has garnered support [4]
Wireless for home networking has made strides [5]
The HomeGrid Forum started earlier this year [6]
Gartner said home networks need attention [7]