Gateways are golden, Part 2

Five years ago, residential gateways were seen as miracle boxes that would deliver data services through the home, and be its video, voice and automation hub. Set-top box makers positioned their devices as gateways, and described next-generation devices with multiple LAN interfaces and large hard disk drives for storing content for distribution around the house.   U.K. set-top box maker Pace renamed all its set-top boxes gateways, and Panja rolled out high-end gateways – really centralized entertainment control devices – allowing specialized subscription entertainment services, and eventually folded.

Five years ago, residential gateways were seen as miracle boxes that would deliver data services through the home, and be its video, voice and automation hub. Set-top box makers positioned their devices as gateways, and described next-generation devices with multiple LAN interfaces and large hard disk drives for storing content for distribution around the house. 

U.K. set-top box maker Pace renamed all its set-top boxes gateways, and Panja rolled out high-end gateways – really centralized entertainment control devices – allowing specialized subscription entertainment services, and eventually folded.

Now that gateways are becoming mainstream, what form will they ultimately take? The central home video server as many have predicted? I don’t think so. Instead, the gateway will work with the video server to help deliver content around the home, but remain unencumbered by the cost of video encoders, compression technology, and a hard disk drive. The video (or media) server will be a separate device, either a PC or a set-top box, with large stores of content as well as built-in digital rights management capabilities to police content distribution over the LAN.

Instead of serving content, gateways will take on more intelligence for processing voice over IP, becoming like the Integrated Access Device (IAD) devices used in VoIP business implementations. Evidence of the trend is Conexant’s recent announcement of a new VoIP gateway reference design built around its home network processor. 

Because gateways will continue to connect new devices such as networked video cameras, gateway software needs to allow no-hassle connections for more than PCs and game consoles. Standards such as Universal Plug and Play, as well as those being developed by the DSLHome and CableHome groups will evolve the gateway’s software stack to enable no-configuration connectivity. 

Ultimately, I think the most important function gateways will serve is securing the home network. Gateways will move from providing a basic network address translation firewall to including VPN, virus protection and other capabilities that put a measure of hardware-based security between the always-on Internet and the end user’s PC. And as we’ve seen by the recent rash of security holes in Windows XP, widespread use of residential gateways for network security might be the only way to achieve truly safe computing in the future.