DS2 Blog

DS2 Analog team short-listed for European Inventor Award 2010

Jorge Blasco, DS2 CEO and a telecommunication engineer with a PhD in the design of analog integrated circuits has been short-listed for the "European Inventor 2010 Award" by an international jury comprising entrepreneurs, managers, scientists, researchers and IP experts working for the European Patent Office. EP Patent 1551089B1 developed jointly by José Luis Gonzalez, Paco Andres, Antonio Pairet, Antonio Poveda, and Jorge Blasco gave rise to the nomination in the "SMEs and Research" category.  The patent concerns an over-voltage protection circuit and method for multiple access and data transmission.  

This year the jury nominated 12 inventions in four categories.   The winners will be announced on 29 April. 

Seminar: ITU-T’s Next-Generation Wired Networking Standard and the IPTV Revolution

The G.hn standard is almost ready and product developments are picking up speed to deliver silicon during 2010. Its no surprise then to see that the HomeGrid Forum has announced that it will host a G.hn seminar during the IPTV World Forum Event, London. It will cover what you need to know to implement and deploy this technology.  The Seminar entitled ITU-T’s Next-Generation Wired Networking Standard and the IPTV Revolution includes an introduction to G.hn and its applications and key technical components of the standard (including Physical and Data Link Layers, and coexistence mechanisms). 

When:    Tuesday, March 23, 2010
             11:00 a.m. – First Session
             2:30 p.m. – Second Session

Where:   IPTV World Forum
              Olympia National Hall, London
              Training Theater on Exhibit Floor

To enter the Exhibit Floor register at IPTV World Forum website.

CeBIT 2010: Two new DS2-based home networking products from Billion

Billion will launch two DS2-based Powerline models at CeBIT Hannover 2010. The   BiPAC 2093 R2 (Pocket-sized 200Mbps PLC Ethernet Wall Plug) and BiPAC 2094 R2 (200Mbps PLC Ethernet Wall Plug with Noise-filtering Power Outlet) provide instant connectivity in the home and are great for connecting different devices such as modems, routers, PCs, set-top-boxes, IP Cameras, and game consoles using existing power cables. Using DS2's unique smart routing and repeating functions these products offer Smart Route to find the best transmission path and Smart Repeater to extend the connection for 100% coverage in larger homes and buildings. The BiPAC 2093 R2 and the BiPAC 2094 R2 include Smart Power Saving technology  that reduces power consumption when the units are not in use. Both products will be available early in the second quarter of the year.

Billion anticipates compatibility between these new products and future G.hn -based products. DS2 has demonstrated compatibility of its current UPA-based Powerline technology with its new G.hn prototypes. 

Woxter wins with DS2

Woxter's VideoLAN ™ is a CES 2010 Design & Engineering Award Honoree.  

This multi-room HDMI extender offers a compact, plug and play, cable-free solution to connect any AV source: set-top-box, multimedia player, Blu-ray player, with HD TV’s throughout the home.

VideoLAN integrates DS2´s AITANA++ chipset. Existing electrical wiring is used to offer a full HD home theater experience anywhere in the home.

G.hn: reducing chip count by 50%

There is a growing interest among Telco/Cable Service Providers in deploying networks that can take advantage of all the existing wires available in the home (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables).

Until recently, there was a number a proprietary technologies for wired networking, but each one of them was designed for one single medium (ie, one technology for powerline only, another for coaxial cable only, and so on).

Each of these technologies is fundamentally different from each other, so networking chips have to be specialized: For example, a chip designed to operate over coaxial cable cannot work over powerlines.

Why are the chips different? In many cases, the reason is simply that they were designed in separate groups, inside closed organizations, which took different decisions when choosing technical elements such modulation type, Forward Error Correction, QoS architecture, Security architecture, etc.

IEEE Communications Magazine paper on G.hn

With the recent approval of G.hn at ITU last week, IEEE Communications Magazine couldn't have chosen a better timing for the publication this month of the paper "G.hn: The New ITU-T Home Networking Standard", by my friends Vladimir Oksman (Infineon Technologies) and Stefano Galli (Panasonic Corporation).

Oksman and Galli are some of the most active participants at the ITU group in which Recommendation G.9960 (the Physical layer of G.hn) was developed. The paper, which is available for download at the HomeGrid Forum website, provides a good overview of the G.hn standard, including the overall architecture, the Physical Layer (Recommendation G.9960) and the Data Link Layer (Recommendation G.9961).

The paper provides interesting information on the issue of the Forward Error Correction (FEC) used in G.hn.

DS2 technology powers new multiroom IPTV service from Telefonica

Telefonica has recently upgraded its IPTV service Imagenio by adding a multi-room service that uses DS2 powerline technology to distribute Imagenio servicio to any room.

Customers of Imagenio now have a solution to end family disputes as the new service adds the ability to simultaneously access distinct content: football, movies, children´s TV channels.

An introduction to G.hn security

G.hn is the new standard developed by ITU for high-speed networking over existing home wires (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables). One of the key elements in a communication standard is the security mechanism that ensures that data confidentiality is protected and that external users cannot get access to users’ data.

G.hn’s security architecture is composed of four major elements:

1. Data Encryption: a procedure to encrypt data with a secret key
2. Data Integrity: a procedure to ensure that messages are not altered after they have been transmitted
3. Authentication: a procedure to ensure that only authorized nodes/users can access encrypted data
4. Key distribution: a procedure to distribute secret keys to authenticated devices in the network

John Dvorak @ PC Magazine on G.hn

John Dvorak, one of the best known technology columnists, which has been covering the PC and CE industry since the 80's, has recently published a short column in PC Magazine called "HDMI: Who Needs This Aggravation?", in which he provides his view of the G.hn standard and how it will fix the problem of a fragmented powerline networking industry.

John talks about past problems in the powerline industry ...

Here comes the latest iteration of power-line networking. It's the 1-Gbps G.hn now promoted by the HomeGrid forum. This time it may all come together. Until now a slew of incompatible technologies have been working against each other, thus preventing any real traction with home power-line networking.

Linley Group: "G.hn is likely to emerge the victor for powerline and phoneline networking"

Joseph Byrne, Senior Analyst at Linley Group (one of the leading research firms for semiconductors), has written an in-depth post ("Fruitless battle of proprietary home-networking tech nears end") on the current situation of the wired home networking industry and the potential of G.hn to solve the fragmentation problem:

There are two efforts abreast to change the situation. The most promising of the two is the G.hn spec being developed under the auspices of the ITU. The developers of this spec made two sage decisions.