CES: 2Wire takes it outside, pumps up HPNA

LAS VEGAS--2Wire announced today at the International CES that it has developed what it claims is the world's first outdoor broadband home gateway. Additionally, the company has started to promote Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HPNA) technology instead of Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MOCA)-based gear.

The new gateway, dubbed the HomePortal 4000 series iNID (intelligent Network Interface Device) mounts to the side of the subscriber's home, much like existing NIDs and is designed to reduce the cost and complexity of service installations in VDSL2 and FTTP networks. 2Wire, which recently inked a $43 million deal to provide in-home gateways to AT&T, said the move is the first step in getting rid of truck rolls for things such as IPTV activations.

“We’ve got to make the installs shorter,” said Jaime Fink, director of product marketing for 2Wire, noting that current IPTV installs often take several hours per home.

By transferring the gateway outside the home, carriers don’t have to bring DSL into the house, which currently is required but also results in a 2 Mb/s to 5 Mb/s loss in bandwidth. Additionally, it allows for carriers to make a quick connection between the iNID's integrated VoIP function and the home's existing phone wiring.

Inside the home, customers must install a power module that provides access to commercial power, battery backup and a connection to the in-home twisted pair for voice. Perhaps the biggest change with the introduction of the 4000 line is the company’s support of HPNA, which lets carriers use existing coax to transmit video to IP set-top boxes. Previously, the company had support MOCA.

“What we’ve found is that MOCA still isn’t an open standard that you can write silicon to,” Fink said. “It was also was surrounded by difficult business practices.”