CABLE OPERATORS LOOK AT HOMEPLUG FOR HOME NETWORKS

Officials at Intellon Corp., a computer chip maker that developed the HomePlug 1.0 standard for the power industry, said they're working on tests with several top cable operators and phone companies, including Comcast. Intellon executives hope to see the first commercial deployments of wireless bridge devices using their technology as soon as year-end. “We're certainly doing trials with other MSOs and telecom companies,” said Ron Glibbery, pres. of Intellon: “These guys are generally moving into the home networking space.”

In the most notable case so far, Comcast is gearing up to begin its 2nd field trial of HomePlug with Intellon in a Western market to be determined. The new trial, slated to start next month, will join a test involving more than 100 homes that started in the Washington, D.C., area this year. Comcast executives plan to study the data from both trials this year and decide whether to launch HomePlug service commercially.

“We thought it would be a great complement to what we're already doing,” said Mitch Bowling, vp-operations & technical support for Comcast. “We think there’s certainly potential in the product… The idea is simplicity for customers.”

Comcast offers the usual wired links for its 5.7 million cable modem customers. But this month, Comcast launched a home networking service, joining several other major MSOs. The service relies on a wireless home gateway device (an integrated cable modem and router) and networking gear to connect up to 5 computers and other devices. The system, supported by Comcast, costs $10 a month plus up to $300 in one-time installation fees. “We come in and set it up,” said Richard Hertz, vp-cross platform network services for Comcast. Speaking at last week’s CableLabs media briefing in N.Y.C., Hertz said Comcast personnel, like their counterparts at Cox and other MSOs, are doing all the installation work themselves.

Although Comcast executives are relying on the wireless route now for home networking, they said HomePlug seems to make more sense in certain situations. They cite cases where large homes, several room walls or inconveniently located computers make more conventional wired or wireless links costly or impractical. In these cases, they said, they could avoid expensive “cabling runs” and inefficient “wall fishing” by simply plugging HomePlug devices, which resemble small power adapters, into electrical sockets.

“It’s pretty compelling,” Hertz said. “Everybody’s got power and the prices of chipsets are coming down… I think it’s going to be a mix of technologies in the home.” Like wireless signals, coaxial cable lines and copper phone wires, power lines have hurdles to overcome in the race to become the dominant means of linking multiple devices in the home. Signal interference and power surges from other home appliances can still cause problems.

Yet HomePlug seems promising enough that MSOs like Comcast are hedging their bets. In a sign of its commitment to the new technology, which offers transmission speeds up to 14 Mbps, Comcast joined the board of directors of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance in January. Comcast made the unusual move just one week after it, EchoStar, Motorola, Cisco and other industry heavyweights formed the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MoCA) to promote cable lines as the fastest, most efficient method of home networking.

Glibbery predicted HomePlug will make greater inroads as more big cable operators and phone companies get serious about home networking. The past year or so, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, BellSouth, Qwest, SBC and Verizon have launched home networking products. “Historically, the barrier for us has been the business case for home networking,” Glibbery said. “I think they're just making a lot of progress on that front.”