Combining wireless technologies like Wi-Fi with powerline systems has been discussed for years, but a real constraint is rising in growth areas like the smart grid, home monitoring and full-house digital media networks. Having acquired a powerline chip specialist, Intellon, last year, Wi-Fi bigwig Atheros is looking to incorporate its technologies more closely and, in the process, try to create a de facto standard.
On acquiring Intellon last September, Atheros CEO Craig Barratt said the Wi-Fi/powerline combination, plus Ethernet, could take the role of the backbone of the home network. However, powerline has its own standards issues, with six different candidates, while other wireless platforms like ZigBee and Bluetooth are also looking to drive into the smart home. Atheros hopes its proposal will gather sufficient industry weight to help sort out the standards mess, and is focusing on a mesh networking approach.
A mesh acceptance Wi-Fi and powerline and also the MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) home networking stage would considerably enhance the conception of standardized in-home systems, says Atheros' CTO Bill McFarland. Speaking at the recent Embedded Systems Conference, he said. We are interested in consistency, but we will do it in a focused way. We are only talking about home networking. In the past, various attempts to create mesh standards have floundered because their remit was too broad, covering greatly different mesh applications from metro area networks to military to home.
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