AT&T: G.hn holds promise of self-installed triple play

G.hn will help accomplish that goal in large part thanks to diagnostic abilities, consistent with the TR-069 standard, that will allow carriers to remotely pinpoint problems and in many cases solve them without a technician’s visit, even if they in some cases require a call to a support center.

“G.hn will include some fantastic diagnostic functions,” Starr said. “It’s like having advanced test equipment built into every G.hn node. That goes way beyond the current state of the art.”

Another rare G.hn feature is the ability to reduce the power consumption of in-home devices during times of non-use by slipping them into a ‘sleep’ mode, as many PCs do today.

But one hurdle for G.hn promoters is in making the technology compatible with existing technologies such as VDSL2, upon which AT&T’s U-Verse service is based. The carrier’s VDSL2 signals operate below the 8.5 megahertz range, so G.hn networks would have to ensure that consumer electronics devices in the home wouldn’t occupy the same spectrum. This issue is “getting serious attention” in the ITU’s working group, Starr said.

Mario Finocchiaro, secretary of the HomeGrid Forum and director of business development at Aware, said in the same Webcast that G.hn devices could be configured to work above 12 MHz or to avoid downstream bands.

“G.hn also has coexistence mechanisms that will allow it to detect non-G.hn signaling over the medium it’s operating on to shift the nodes’ spectrum usage or transmit power to facilitate coexistence with other technologies – both in-home technologies and broadband access technologies like DSL,” Finocchiaro said.

And the standard is also being designed to allow dual-mode devices that will accommodate both G.hn and existing technologies. But given the wide range of consumer devices in the market, such dual-mode functionality will likely require work outside the ITU, among consumer electronics standards groups, Starr said.

Another tricky aspect of G.hn deployment will be its use in some multidwelling units (MDUs). Some MDU tenants share the same power wiring as other tenants, which could pose the possibility of interference. And some landlords prefer to put residential gateways in equipment closets rather than living units, which creates “an interesting wrinkle” for G.hn, Starr said.

In addition, G.hn users will need to be careful to avoid crosstalk between various wires in the home – between phone lines and power lines, for example.

G.hn’s compatibility with existing technologies is also a key concern for Verizon Communications, which a spokesperson said is “active on the committee working the G.hn issue.”

“Verizon agrees that the goal of a home networking standard that can operate on any in-home communications medium is directionally the way to go,” the spokesperson said. “However, for any standard to succeed, it must address backward compatibility with those technologies such as MoCA that have achieved widescale deployment in consumers’ homes.”