Intellon’s HomePlug AV-based powerline ICs are expected to be interoperable with future products designed to the newly-confirmed baseline for the IEEE P1901 global powerline communications standard. HomePlug AV technology included in the confirmed baseline for the P1901 standard provides the key to a seamless path toward compatibility with the future standard.

IEEE’s proposed P1901 specification defines a global standard for communications over powerlines, and Intellon’s HomePlug AV products are designed and optimized for the unique challenges of powerline communications. Intellon is also actively involved in the development of the ITU G.hn standard, which seeks to define a unified communications protocol over coax wiring and phone lines as well as powerlines. The ITU group is still working on defining the overall system specification so that optimal performance can be realized for each of the three wireline media.

Intellon has a long history of supporting and implementing global standards efforts. The company has shipped over 30 million powerline communications ICs based on HomePlug, EIA, SAE and TIA standards, including over 23 million HomePlug ICs. Over 45 service providers use Intellon’s HomePlug ICs, with customer deployments over coax wiring and phone lines as well as powerlines. Because Intellon’s ICs have been designed to optimize communications over the challenging powerline environment, they typically provide even higher bandwidth when operating over coax and phone wiring than over powerlines. Intellon invented the powerline communications technology upon which the HomePlug 1.0 standard was based and was a significant contributor to the HomePlug AV standard and the IEEE P1901 baseline; it is also an active contributor to the proposed ITU G.hn standard.