Want high-speed internet services everywhere in your home or business? You might have problems. Existing wiring has limitations and installing new internet cabling is time-consuming and expensive. What you need is a flexible solution that distributes IP-based services over any existing wire. Mor Miller, Executive Vice President TangoTec, tells us more.
High-speed internet throughout the home is in high demand amongst consumers. Then there are commercial businesses. Hotels, shopping malls and airports all want to gain a competitive edge by providing multimedia services. How do you supply these services in homes and commercial premises without spending time, money and effort on wiring the whole building?
One answer is to use existing internet cabling, but most buildings do not have this unless they are new. Another option is to use coaxial cables or telephone lines that already deliver TV and telecom services to the premises. “Coax and phone lines are just one gateway,” Mor points out. “You then have to distribute the services within the home. If you want three IPTVs, how do you network them?”
A fourth option is to use powerlines. These are present throughout most homes and buildings with plenty of outlet points. “Powerline technologies are primarily strong in Europe,” says Mor. “The downside is there’s a lot of noise and performance isn’t as good. That’s why service providers in the US tend to favour coax and phone lines.”
So what’s the answer? Seeing the dominance of powerline delivery in Europe and the substantial increase in performance of coaxial cable, phone lines and powerlines, TangoTec has developed a solution for all three structures. Using a HomePlug AV standard and proprietary technology, it can distribute IP services over any wire. “Now you can use all three structures: coax, phone line and powerline with the same standard throughout the house,” says Mor.
This gives operators the flexibility to choose which structure suits a particular customer, house or building. Some homes or rooms may not have coax or a phone line so the operator can use the powerline. If the powerline communication is poor in one part of the building, the coax or phone line can be used. “An operator can come into the home and plug one room to the power outlet, another to the coax and another to the phone line and you can stream IPTV in high definition through all three structures in that one building,” explains Mor.
As well as flexibility, HomePlug AV’s new performance of 500 Mbps is also an advantage. “We’re getting 350 Mbps on coax, 300 Mbps over the phone line and 250 over the powerline,” explains Mor. “That’s substantially better than anything available on the market right now.”
What about the future? There is only so much data you can transmit through conventional wiring. “All these structures have a speed limit,” admits Mor. That’s why the future is G.hn, a completely new standard developed by the telecom industry for all three structures.” G.hn offers 1 Gbps and next year will see the introduction of products offering that speed.
In the meantime, TangoTec will be exhibiting its latest 500 Mbps “Triple play” network system at IBC 2011 (Hall 3, A15). “What we’re bringing to the market is high performance and flexibility in one box,” says Mor.
Schedule a demo with TangoTec, or another related technology at IBC.
