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HomePlug and IEEE want our home networks to play nice, talk to each other
HomePlug hasn't exactly struck it big on the home networking scene but, with so many disparate options (none of which play very nice together) it's not hard to see why. The Powerline Alliance is throwing its support behind a new IEEE standard, P1905, that may ease our consumer pain and make the outlet connectivity tech a better fit for our dungeons living rooms. The goal is to create a layer that sits atop the various wired and wireless hookups that blanket our homes and let them easily share data. Bridging the gap between HomePlug, HomePlug AV, Ethernet, WiFi, and MoCA is an ambitious task to tackle, but we've got faith our gadgets can get along.
HomePlug Powerline Alliance and Wi-Fi Alliance align, hope for wireless home nirvana
Ah, now we're talking. Over the years, HomePlug and wireless HD / HDMI haven't exactly "taken off." Routing internet signals over a home's power network has been hampered by subpar transmission rates, and using wireless in the home for anything other than basic web duties has shown to be either too costly or too much hassle. Now, however, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and the Wi-Fi Alliance have seen the light, and they're joining hands in order to jointly push their technologies to homeowners. Focused primarily on " facilitating interoperability of smart grid applications," these organizations are fixing to enable SEP 2.0 applications to operate across a diverse mix of wireless and wired networks, and hopefully they'll reach out to product manufacturers while they're at it. Here's hoping they'll be able to nail it -- the demand is certainly there, but the execution thus far has been downright depressing.
