Unified networking - bringing wire and wireless together - is an important trend. Atheros today introduced an interesting new approach to unified aimed at the residence - and with interesting possibilities for applications well beyond the home.
I’m a wireless guy, but I’ve always said that if one can use wire, then one should. In fact, there are only three cases where one should absolutely go wireless: where wire simply can’t be installed due to physical restrictions, where wireless is cheaper (and required performance and price/performance goals are otherwise met), or where mobility is a factor. If at least one of these conditions doesn’t hold, then use wire.
The residence was the first venue to really take advantage of wireless LANs, at least partially because houses are way more difficult to wire than office buildings (thereby meeting the first condition above). But houses still suffer from reduced throughput or no WLAN coverage at all, you know, usually in that back bedroom which now serves as an office or home theater, simply due to limitations in the technology. Wi-Fi repeaters never did catch on, and the solution often is, assuming one wishes to make the investment, to run data cable to the underserved location. And, of course, some homes are large enough to merit multiple APs, and a vehicle must be put in place to interconnect them. Wireless meshing can occasionally work here, but not always, again due to RF-propagation-related issues.
So it makes sense to think about wire as an extension or backhaul facility, but, still, most homeowners will have a really hard time justifying the hundreds to even thousands of dollars required to install the necessary cabling. That’s why Atheros Communications’ announcement today of their new Hybrid Home Networking solutions is so interesting – these are the first unified networking designs for the home that I’ve seen. And, as you might have guessed, no new wires are required – the wired component in this case is via powerline carrier (PLC) – yes, using existing AC lines. OK, granted, this might raise an eyebrow or two – but PLC has progressed to the point where it can offer 200 Mbps raw throughput, and there’s even an IEEE standard (1901-2010) now in place. So this unified approach to home networking has great potential indeed. Oh, yes – some designs include Ethernet as well. Imagine the possibilities…
Atheros doesn’t build the end-user devices, but they have produced a series of reference designs (including UI and management software) that will be taken as points of departure by home-networking equipment manufacturers. We expect to see products based on this technology available shortly, and I’m looking forward to trying these out. More, then, later. But this is potentially a very big deal.
And, yes, it just may be what the doctor ordered in some enterprise – and even commercial and industrial – applications as well. Coverage problems, after all, extend far beyond the residence.
