A defining moment for home-based LANs

In a move that signals growing confidence in the home local area network market, 15 companies in the telecom, energy and computer sectors announced last week a new alliance to create end-to-end specifications for home networking called open service gateway.

The OSG standards will give vendors and service providers a universal platform to develop products that link devices, including PCs, TVs, VCRs, wireless and wireline phones, and heating and security systems. OSG links the products in a LAN configuration that uses the Internet as a point of interconnection.

"Rather than focusing on providing a box here and a box there, and hoping that someone figures out how to have end-to-end services, we want to make sure the home becomes an intranet and is connected to the Internet where those services are enabled," said Alain Briancon, vice president and director of digital experience for Motorola.

Based entirely on Java, OSG is expected to streamline the development of home-networking solutions.

"Java is significantly more portable than almost anything else," said Stan Hanks, Enron Communications' vice president of research and technology. "It basically gives you the opportunity to write applications once and to execute them in multiple environments without necessarily making a lot changes to the application."

Other member companies include Alcatel, Cable & Wireless, Electricite de France, Ericsson, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Network Computer Inc., Nortel Networks, Oracle Corp., Philips Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Sybase and Toshiba.

Enron and Electricite de France are notable newcomers to this industry list of who's who, pointing to the heightened presence of energy companies and their subsidiaries in communications ventures.

"So far the Internet has been for people and not so much for machines," Briancon said. "I think with the electric companies getting involved, now we are looking at the Internet as a place for things. That's quite exciting because there are many more things than people."

The OSG standards are expected to complement nearly all the existing home-networking standards, including Bluetooth, CAL, CEDus, HAVi, HomePNA, HomePnP, HomeRF, Jini technology, LonWorks and VESA. OSG products will likely run over high-speed networks that use technologies such as asymmetrical digital subscriber line, cable modems and wideband code division multiple access.