It's a very straightforward concept: You plug an adapter into any electric socket near your high-speed Internet router. Then anywhere else in your house, you plug in a second, third, fourth, or Nth adapter, all of which have an Ethernet jack. And there you have it: Your home's electric system becomes your home network. The adapters all communicate with each other and deliver maximum Ethernet rates approaching 100 megabits per second, the max throughput for most home networks today.
Here's what will interest telecoms about this: The solution is generally more reliable and telco pocketbook-friendly than your average wireless LAN system. Why? Well, that's the subject of my interview with Jeff:
Dan Baker: Jeff, what's wrong with the home- or office-based wireless LAN device we've come to know and love? Why does the world need your new mousetrap?
Jeff Scroggin: Dan, it's first important to understand the market niche we fill. If you've got a home network that connects a few PCs for e-mail and Web browsing a wireless LAN is usually your lowest cost way to go. The entry price for our powerline-based network is about $150, a price point that is certainly is not going to threaten Cisco and NetGear.
But sophisticated home networks are rapidly becoming video pipelines. You're seeing increased streaming of high-res movies and television shows from places like Hulu. Plus, a reliable home network is critical for content from IPTV services where you need to be able to watch a movie without a lot of jitter, pauses, or freezes.
But in the bigger scheme of things, it's not an either/or proposition here. Both wireless vs. wireline can peacefully exist and support each other in the home. Our adapters work well with Wi-Fi and give that extra boost it needs to support high-speed apps.
DB: On your Web site I learned that powerline home networks have already taken off in Europe. What's that all about?
JS: Europe is actually ahead of the U.S. in this area. Interestingly enough, in Europe, powerline is the most popular networking option for IPTV installs.
And the reason for this has a lot to do with the dense population and the way buildings were constructed over there.
When the neighborhood apartments are close together, the wireless networks overlap and interfere with each other. Then too, many of the older buildings in Europe are made of brick or stone which wireless signals don't penetrate very well, and which is not very conducive to installing Ethernet cabling.
DB: OK, sounds like powerline LANs can deliver a better signal and customer experience in many cases. But what about telecoms? Is there much of a good reason for them to switch to the powerline model in their home network installs?
JS: Dan, the biggest payoff for telcos is in lowering installation costs for services like IPTV.
We think the potential for powerline home networks for a company like AT&T is huge because it takes an awfully long time to install a U-verse network in a home. A friend of mine told me it took AT&T a full day and a half to install for him. Now that's certainly on the high side, but even a six-hour install is an expensive truck roll.
To read the full, in-depth Q&A on our sister site, Billing & OSS World, click here or on the source link below.
Jeff Scroggin, CEO of Plaster Networks, brings more than 25 years' experience in high technology, having worked with industry leaders such as Oracle, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and EMC. Jeff has held executive management roles with established companies as well as startups, with responsibility for product management, product marketing, field marketing, alliances, and sales. He earned his undergraduate degree in engineering at Stanford University where he was nominated a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Jeff received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Dan Baker is Technology Research Institute (TRI)’s principal market synthesizer and co-founder. He is a former market analyst at Venture Development Corporation (VDC), where he tracked the telecom and real-time computer markets. In 1992 while at VDC he authored one of the first multi-client research reports on the Advanced Intelligent Network software and systems market. From 2004 through 2008, TRI sold its research reports exclusively through Dittberner Associates. Baker was the research director and principal analyst for reports in the Dittberner OSS/BSS KnowledgeBase.
