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With the widespread adoption of digital consumer electronic technologies like digital TVs (DTVs), PVRs and computers, there is an increasing need for home networking technologies that enable seamless distribution of data and multimedia. Most homes are not equipped with specialized wiring for networking, and retrofitting them with new wiring is expensive. Hence, the need arises for a new ‘No New Wires’ local area networking (LAN) technology that enables affordable connectivity within the home. With multiple outlets in every room, powerlines are the most pervasive wires within the home. The use of this wiring for networking purpose (i.e., powerline communications or PLC) can come a long way in solving the home networking problem.

PLC systems based on the HomePlug 1.0 standard^[1] are available in North America and Europe. While HomePlug 1.0 is adequate for applications like web browsing, it cannot support multimedia applications such as audio/video streaming and multiplayer gaming as these applications require higher bandwidths with quality of service (QoS) guarantees. For example, high-definition MPEG2 streams (HDTV) require up to 24 Mbps of application throughput, as well as upper bounds on QoS parameters such as latency, jitter and packet loss. Typical home network usage scenarios include simultaneous support for multiple multimedia streams. Thus, home networks should be capable of providing 50 Mbps to 60 Mbps application level throughput within the network.

HomePlug Powerline Alliance^[2] has released a new generation of HomePlug standard, HomePlug AV, which is intended to support these emerging multimedia applications. This article discusses the challenges posed by powerline channels and how HomePlug AV standard overcomes them.

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