G.hn: A New Standard For Home Connectivity

Transcript

MDU REPORT G.hn: A New Standard for Home Connectivity   Home networking has been the final and most challenging broadband frontier. Thanks to G.hn, it’s about to become much simpler.   By Linda A. Schoener ■ Technology Writer T he first few meters inside the home are proving to be more expensive to conquer than the first mile. Network builders can now pass a home with fiber for $600 or less. But the home network needed to take advantage of fiber’s bandwidth has remained pricey due to its custom nature; every dwelling unit presents new challenges. G.hn – standing roughly for “nextgeneration home network technology”– is one of several approaches to home networking that seek to make firstmeter connectivity easier to handle. It is a unified standard for wired in-home networking being developed by the International Telecommunications Union Telecom (ITU-T) Standardization Sector and promoted by a trade group, the HomeGrid Forum. G.hn technology is being designed to offer important advantages to service providers, property owners, homeowners and tenants.  When it becomes commercial next year, G.hn will allow networking of all types of digital media over unshielded telephone lines, power lines and coaxial cable – the most common wires found in today’s homes. G.hn will also be compatible with the two most widely used Ethernet home networking technologies, Cat 5 and Cat 6 wired Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) and wireless Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11). The new standard will enable multiple digital media devices to communicate more easily within a home network even if they use different types of wiring.   The G.hn protocol obtained the consent of the ITU-T last December as 36 G.hn is expected to offer important advantages to service providers, property owners, homeowners and tenants. It will enable digital media devices to communicate easily in a home network even if they use different types of wiring. ITU‑T Recommendation G.9960: physical layer (PHY) and architecture. But the rest of the complex standard jelled only this past spring, and final details with regard to digital rights management (DRM) were still being polished at press time. In general, G.hn will use AES encryption but will be transparent to other devices’ encryption and DRM schemes.   Products Available in 2010 In spring 2009, members of the once secretive ITU-T G.hn work group and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards developers began cooperating in a more formal way. Although G.hn prototype chips have already been produced, the full G.hn specification with DRM is not expected to receive consent from ITUT until this fall. The first product-ready silicon chipsets will follow in early 2010 and G.hn products are expected to become available later next year. Some consumer electronics firms intend to have demonstration products (not yet fully operational or ready for shipping) on display at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January 2010. G.hn is the second wireline home networking standard developed by the ITU-T in recent years. The earlier one, HomePNA (ITU-T standard G.9954), is a home-networking standard for coaxial cable and phone wires used by service providers such as AT&T (for Uverse). Following the same process used by the HomePNA Alliance, the HomeGrid Forum is working toward certifying compliance to the G.hn specification and ensuring the interoperability of upcoming G.hn products. The HomeGrid Forum Web site, www.homegridforum. org, provides up-to-date information on the G.hn standards-setting process along with useful information that can assist property owners and network builders in making decisions about future investments in G.hn technology. About the Author Technology writer Linda A. Schoener can be reached at [email protected]. | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | October 2009 MDU REPORT The emerging G.hn technology is being shaped by stakeholders from the global telecom industry along with contributors from consumer electronics companies, personal computing companies, silicon suppliers and IP licensing companies. Service providers participating in the ITU-T G.hn work group include AT&T, British Telecom, China Telecom, France Telecom, NTT, Qwest and Telenor. Work group members from the home networking industry include ACN, Alcatel-Lucent, Aware, Conexant, CopperGate, DS2, Gigle, Infineon, Intel, Panasonic and Texas Instruments.   The HomeGrid Forum has entered into agreements with several industry standards groups, including the Digital Living Network Alliance, the HomePNA Alliance, the Consumer Electronics Powerline Communication Alliance, the Universal Powerline Association and the Continental Automated Buildings Association. G.hn Integration Into Products G.hn technology will almost certainly be integrated into many consumer electronics, service provider and computing products. Mario Finocchiaro, HomeGrid Forum secretary and director of business development for Aware Inc., said in a HomeGrid Forum webinar (“A Service Provider’s Perspective on G.hn,” May 2009), “By virtue of the fact that G.hn is designed to network all varieties of digital media throughout the home, any home appliance that sends or receives digital media, including voice, audio files, video and data … is a candidate for G.hn.” Televisions, DVD players, AV components, whole-home audio systems, personal video recorders and gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360 are all likely to be embedded with G.hn technology. Finocchiaro added, “Any of the products that service providers use to deliver triple-play or even quad-play services to their subscribers are ideal candidates for G.hn technology. … These include settop boxes, residential gateways, broadband home routers and that type of networking equipment.” Optical network terminals (ONTs) are also potentially important G.hn platforms. G.hn-enabled computing products could include storage devices, printers and phones as well as personal computers. G.hn is also being designed to connect personal computers to many other types of devices. “For example, if a home user wanted to watch an Internet video on a TV, or send audio files, or play music throughout the home, or print files, or store information on a homenetwork-to-patch-storage (NAPS) box, [G.hn could support all] these types of applications,” Finocchiaro said.   since the creation of G.hn in 2006 even though it has invested in HomePNA for its U-verse deployments. Tom Starr, lead member of technical staff at AT&T Labs and an active ITU-T contributor to the G.hn standard, said in the previously mentioned HomeGrid Forum webinar, “One of the important distinctions between G.hn and some of the legacy home-networking technologies is that G.hn is being designed from the outset to be part of a service provider’s managed service to the customer.”   Challenge and Opportunity for Service Providers As a next-generation in-home networking standard, G.hn presents both a challenge and an opportunity to service providers. Verizon, for example, has been mentioned as an early participant in the ITU-T G.hn standards-setting work group. But although Verizon may in fact benefit in the future from G.hn technology, it has invested heavily in the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) standard for its FiOS installations. For now, Verizon’s overriding concern in the formation of G.hn specifications is backward compatibility and interoperability with MoCA.   “Verizon agrees that the goal of establishing a home-networking standard that can operate over any in-home communications medium is directionally the way to go,” said Tushar Saxena, Verizon’s director of home networking. “However, for any standard to succeed, it must address backward compatibility with technologies such as MoCA that have achieved wide-scale deployment in consumers’ homes. We will continue to work toward this larger objective.”  AT&T, on the other hand, has continued to be a major participant in the ITU-T G.hn standards-setting process Faster Networks in MDUs Because G.hn is expected to significantly exceed the transmission speeds of existing in-home networking wired technologies, it could become indispensable to property owners whose older tenants will require greater speed and better connectivity for their legacy devices. According to Finocchiaro, G.hn is targeted to have a 1 Gbps PHY data rate, which will translate into different throughput and coverage rates for coax, telephone lines and power lines. He anticipates “a 400 Mbps throughput rate at 99 percent coverage over coax and 250 Mbps throughput with 98 percent coverage over power lines.” Performance levels between those targets are expected for telephone lines. With first-mile network speeds already reaching 1 Gbps in a few countries, in-home networking transmission speeds like these will soon be necessary. Because G.hn is designed to coexist with networking technologies already in use in home wiring, it will have to look like Ethernet to a wide range of devices. This enhanced feature will enable G.hn to connect readily to older devices. Initially, legacy devices might be connected through an intermediate G.hn hub that could cost between $30 Because G.hn’s transmission speeds will exceed those of legacy technologies, it could become indispensable to property owners whose older tenants require greater speed and better connectivity for their legacy devices. October 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 37 MDU REPORT to $50 by the end of 2010. Many new consumer electronic devices will have the G.hn hub built in at an expected additional manufacturing cost of about $2. That way a home entertainment center, a new TV set or a network storage drive could become a G.hn hub on the home network. G.hn standards setters envision G.hn-compliant hubs that link disparate devices. New G.hn-aware devices will likely be able to do all or most of the configuration work themselves in a few years. But older existing devices – about 85 percent of consumer electronics products in a typical home today – are not network-aware and will rely on hubs to connect them. Property owners with predominantly younger tenants may choose to not add G.hn technology to existing MDU wiring because these tenants have newer consumer electronics devices that are already Ethernet aware over standard Ethernet cables and Wi-Fi. Newer consumer devices with Ethernet ports can easily be connected without G.hn through a small computer or even through appliances such as game stations. Do-It-Yourself Networking For some property owners, letting tenants create their own in-unit networks by buying compatible consumer electronics products and hooking them together in an ad hoc fashion is particularly costattractive. Of course, even today tenants often install their own connections to bypass nonstandard and poorly installed coax cable. But ad hoc networking with today’s technologies will become more difficult for consumers in the future because of DRM. G.hn is expected to help make inhome connectivity so easy that users themselves will be able do it. Thus, property owners may not have to front the cost of doing installations if this work becomes easy enough for new tenants or homeowners to do on their own. Starr said, “The recurring theme that you will be hearing is simple self-installation by an average consumer. So this is an area where there is an enormous value available. We hope to capitalize on this. This by itself could be the so-called killer advantage of G.hn technology.” Starr noted that the security and privacy features of the G.hn standard are also particularly important in MDUs, where tenants often share the same wiring. Sharing wiring can lead to insecure transmissions or to the possibility of interference over electrical power lines.  Implementing G.hn technology in MDUs may present some challenges, Five Degrees of Improved Home Networking 1. Easy fix. Common home-networking problems should be resolvable by the customer without outside help or, if necessary, with help from a remote technical support center. 2. Easy add. Customers with existing service should be able to easily move customer-premises equipment and add new devices to their home networks by themselves. 3. No new wires. Installation of new service by a technician should never require new inside wiring or reconfiguration of existing wiring. The equipment should automatically configure itself to use the best available wiring. 4. Outside only. A technician should be able to install service, including home networking, without entering the home. Once the technician has placed equipment outside, customers should be able to install the remainder themselves. 5. Complete DIY. Like ADSL-based Internet service today, the customer performs the complete installation, with no technician dispatch. Source: Tom Starr, AT&T Labs however. As Starr commented about AT&T’s preference for putting residential gateways inside living units: “Certain landlords sometimes might prefer to put the equipment in the equipment closet and not in the living unit. And that’s the interesting ‘wrinkle’ that will have to be considered.” Forgoing Structured Wiring and Wireless Solutions Most owners will use straight Ethernet, not G.hn, in structured wiring installs. But MDU owners planning to install structured wiring in new units might consider using G.hn instead to wire units for high bandwidth. Owners opting to use G.hn technology could include it inside a structured wiring cabinet in small as well as in large apartments. But to make room for all the cables that could potentially be connected, owners will probably want to make cabinets taller than the customary between-the-studs size of 28 to 30 inches deep and 14.5 inches wide. The minimum height for a between-thestuds structured wiring cabinet may need to be at least 36 inches. G.hn can be powered by the same supply that handles the ONT. Owners could also forgo structured wiring altogether and make the proposed G.hn hub freestanding because new technology, such as NTT’s newly affordable bend-insensitive fiber and the “thin” version of Corning’s fiber, allows for a portable network gateway. Verizon is already deploying such ONTs in the United States. The problem, of course, is that bringing the ONT inside a home does not always meet existing regulatory requirements for telephone industry demarcation points. And the network provider, not the property owner, will own the first-meter wiring if the ONT is inside the customer premises. The FCC has signaled that it has no interest in specifying demarcation points at the federal level even if the phone companies want them. (U.S. phone companies have always had flexibility on a state-by-state basis for determining  installations of both outside and inside wiring.) This makes G.hn attractive in older structures because it Continued on Page 63 38 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | October 2009 MDU REPORT Continued from Page 38 G.hn’s Technical Advantages • G.hn’s support of secure and private communications is particularly important both for business applications and in MDUs. • G.hn offers power consumption savings – equipment can go into a lowpower sleep mode and remain ready to provide service quickly. • G.hn improves quality of service by reducing latency, or the delay between one node and the next, in the home network. • G.hn supports at least 20 simultaneously active nodes in a domain. • G.hn supports the Broadband Forum TR-069 specification for remote diagnosis of wiring and packet transmissions throughout the home. This enables the service provider to quickly and easily diagnose problems, fix them and provision the equipment from an operations center, often without the customer having to do anything and without dispatching a technician to the home. It’s like having a piece of advanced test equipment built into every G.hn node. Source: Tom Starr, AT&T Labs cuts deployment costs. Of course, some states may have to modify their regulations regarding demarcation points. Many network deployers are planning to use wireless-equipped ONTs as home gateways. But for MDU owners, wireless has been a problem, mainly because of security reasons and to some extent because of channel and bandwidth limitations. There will not be enough wireless bandwidth, for instance, to accommodate the upcoming 4K ultra HDTV, whose sales are expected to start late in 2012. The cost of using G.hn instead of wireless distribution will probably be higher than Verizon’s existing cost for wireless in-unit distribution, but G.hn would be cheaper to maintain and would also provide higher bandwidth with more security in the long run. COEXISTING WITH OTHER STANDARDS Coexistence mechanisms will enable G.hn to avoid interference with HomePlug technology already in use over power lines. When a device transmits over power lines, the embedded G.hn will be able to sense whether the wiring is already being used by HomePlug devices. G.hn will do this by using the same frequency band as HomePlug versions 1.0 and 2.0 and overlapping that band with other frequencies.   Previously, HomePlug used a higher frequency with a range that was not in- Don’t Miss the Broadband Properties Summit Toward a Fiber-ConneCTed world April 26 – 28, 2010 InterContinental Hotel – Dallas, Addison, Texas “It’s the leading event for network builders and deployers.” The Summit is widely recognized as the number one venue for information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Register Early to Receive Major Discounts Special Reduced Rates Now in Effect Visit www.bbpmag.com or call 877-588-1649 To Exhibit or Sponsor, contact: Irene Prescott at [email protected], or call 316-733-9122. For other inquiries, call 877-588-1649, or visit www.bbpmag.com. October 2009 | www.broadbandproper ties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 63 MDU REPORT Why G.hn Is Needed in MDUs  • Retrofitting buildings with structured wiring using Ethernet cables is expensive, messy and time-consuming. In buildings with concrete walls, it’s not even feasible. • Wi-Fi – all aside from speed and security issues – doesn’t provide the quality of service needed for video or voice communication. Momentary interruptions may not be noticeable when you’re downloading email, but video and voice require continuity. • Power lines and twisted pair don’t usually work well in MDUs, at least in the United States, because of interference and cross talk. That leaves coaxial cable as the physical medium of choice for home networks. • HomePNA, the standard most telcos use to deliver signals over coax, is limited to throughput of about 200 Mbps – not enough to support new applications coming down the pike – and it uses frequencies that conflict with the RF return signal used by DOCSIS. That’s why it isn’t used by cable companies or by telcos, such as Verizon, that use RF video. • MoCA, the standard used by cable companies (and Verizon) to deliver signals over coax, has a maximum throughput of about 175 Mbps. A more important concern for MDUs is that MoCA’s DOCSIScompatible frequencies limit the distances signals can travel. • G.hn replaces all of this “alphabet soup” with a single next-generation standard. G.hn will deliver signals over coax at speeds and distances that will allow providers to deliver next-generation services in MDUs. Source: Michael Weissman, vice president of North American marketing for CopperGate Communications and a member of the board of the HomeGrid Forum. CopperGate produces HomePNA chipsets, including a chipset for MDUs, and expects to be one of the first companies to deliver G.hn chipsets.  cluded in G.hn. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance remedied this potential problem by making HomePlug 3.0 aware of G.hn. HomePlug 3.0 will adjust its distribution frequencies to accommodate any G.hn signal on the same wire. Now, if HomePlug 3.0 senses that a G.hn signal is on a power line, it will move its frequency to avoid G.hn and preserve compatibility. [Editor’s note: For an update on the HomePlug compatibility issue, see the “Bandwidth Hawk” column on page 6.] G.hn will also mimic packet sizes and packet headers of other technology. Packets contain mainly the information that is being transmitted – that is, the data itself. But packets also contain the address of the device that is the intended receiver, along with information that the intended receiver needs to decrypt the contents. This setup normally requires a two-way dialogue between the receiving device and the transmitter. Here, handshaking is necessary for truly robust security. But if more bandwidth is taken up by these handshake messages, less will be available for actually transmitting files. So G.hn uses the DRM of existing transmission schemes and does not add a new layer for DRM – only for AES general security. GATEWAYS AND DEMARCS Because it is arriving at a time when gateways are becoming more flexible and complicated, G.hn technology must be able to coexist with network environments in all regions. The typical network gateway in the United States – that is, the interface between the outside wiring and the home network – is quite dif- ferent from its counterparts in Europe or Asia. In this country, the gateway is the dividing line, or demarcation point (demarc), between the service provider’s network and the property owner’s. In Europe, the demarc is normally on an inside wall. In Asia, the gateway is separated from the demarc. A goal of G.hn standards setters is to make sure set-top boxes can function in their usual way even with added DRM. Content providers see a need to protect high-value video content that will be transported over G.hn networks. Traditionally, a scrambled signal that travels through the public network and the home network is unscrambled in the settop box. But with G.hn, the set-top box must be aware that this content might be stored on a network server or sent on to another device. G.hn envisions the network server’s copy to be viewable on other devices, such as computers, that previously have not required set-top boxes. This can be done by giving the set-top box two-way communications capability. G.hn will allow for that. G.hn is intended to look the same to the rest of the home network, whether it is supplementing existing structured wiring or interfacing with a Wi-Fi network. This is not easy when some of the content is using a proprietary security protocol. G.hn-connected devices will need the “smarts” to sort out various security schemes in real time. Conclusion “What we’re interested in is having more coverage, robustness, reliability, security, quality of service and manageability. All of those other dimensions beyond just bit rate are where we see the big gains and differentiation for G.hn technology,” Starr explained. For AT&T, G.hn has the potential to achieve what Starr calls the “five degrees of improved home networking”: easy fix, easy add, no new wires, outside only, and complete do-ityourself. “When you bring this all together, G.hn is going to be a real gamechanger,” Starr said. BBP Additional information about G.hn is available in our free digital edition at www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php 64 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproper ties.com | October 2009