New standard for unified smart home network

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recently approved a cutting-edge technical standard that will usher in a new era in smart home networking systems and applications. Called G.hn, the standard will enable service providers to deploy new offerings, including HDTV and IPTV, more cost effectively. It will also allow consumer electronics manufacturers to seamlessly network all types of home entertainment, home automation and home security products and simplify consumers’ purchasing and installation processes.

G.hn-compliant devices will be capable of handling high-bandwidth multimedia content at speeds of up to 1 Gbps over household wiring options, including coaxial cable and standard phone and power lines. It will deliver many times the throughput of existing wireless and wired technologies.

Approval of the standard will allow manufacturers of networked home devices - set-top boxes, residential gateways, computers, audio systems, DVD players, household appliances and any other device that might be connected to a network - to confidently move forward with their R&D programs and rapidly bring products to market. Experts predict that the first chipsets employing G.hn will be available early 2010.

“G.hn is a technology that gives new use to the cabling most people already have in their homes,” said Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau. “The array of applications that it will enable includes energy efficient smart appliances, home automation and telemedicine devices. The sheer weight of industry support behind this innovation is testament to the potential of this standard to transform home networking.”

The physical layer and architecture portion of the standard were approved by ITU-T Study Group 15 on 9 October. The data link layer of the new standard is expected to garner final approval in May 2010.

The Home Grid Forum, a group set up to promote G.hn, is developing a certification program together with the Broadband Forum, that will aid semiconductor and systems manufacturers in building and bringing standards-compliant products to market, with products that fully conform to the G.hn standard bearing the HomeGrid-certified logo.