Our colleague Pablo Gagliardo recently published an article titled "Is home networking coming of age?" at Embedded-Europe.com on the benefits of powerline networking for video applications:
Powerline combines the best of wired and wireless connections. Consumers have a fast, reliable and secure connection, anywhere in their home. Since transmissions are sent over a wired medium, lower latencies can be achieved benefiting real-time streaming applications like VoIP and IPTV and interactive services. The powerline connection does not experience interference from ‘line of sight’ issues, because it is a direct connection to every outlet within the home. At the same time, it also has strong encryption and a push-button secure network configuration to enable a secure data connection.
Wireless can offer benefits as well, though. Like powerline, it does not require any additional wiring and can extend a broadband signal through the house. However, it is less stable and secure and the level of bandwidth that it can deliver also limits it. It rarely has the capability to deliver triple play services (video, voice and data) simultaneously. Another limiting factor for wireless technology is full coverage.
Every time a wireless signal encounters an obstacle, signal strength is lost. This means that full coverage can be a problem depending on the construction materials used and the size of the house. Powerline technology can help improve wireless coverage by acting as a backbone for wireless connectivity increasing coverage and available data rates.
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