HomePNA Certifies More Network Products

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 4/29/2008

San Ramon, Calif. — The HomePNA special-interest group certified nine more products incorporating its 320Mbps HomePNA 3.1 home-networking specification, bringing the number of 3.1-certfied products to 26.

The new certifications include ADSL and VDSL residential gateways, set-top boxes, Ethernet-to-HomePNA 3.1 bridges and an outdoor residential gateway/indoor Wi-Fi access point. The new certifications include the first 3.1-compliant 320Mbps chipset reference design.

HomePNA 3.1 products are offered by service providers to distribute multimedia triple-play services, including HDTV, standard-definition TV, video on demand, VoIP and Internet data over a home’s existing coax cables and phone wires. The technology is designed to reduce providers’ installation costs, reduce their operational expenses through remote management and diagnostics, and enable unified billing of triple-play services.

The newest certified products include 2Wire’s iNID VDSL2 outdoor residential gateway and indoor Wi-Fi access point units, D-Link’s ADSL2+ residential gateway, SMC’s VDSL2 residential Gateway- and Ethernet-to-HomePNA 3.1 coax bridge, Scientific Atlanta’s IP set-top box and IP set-top box with DVR, SendTek’s Ethernet-to-HomePNA 3.1 phone-wire bridge and coax MII module, and CopperGate’s 320Mbps Ethernet-to-HomePNA 3.1 bridge reference design.

HomePNA 3.1 was standardized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in January 2007 and is the only no-new-wire home networking technology supported by an international standard, the group said.