Fixed Wireless Business

Competitors No More?

In past conferences, and at the upcoming 802.11 Planet Conference & Expo, HomeRF announces a future road map that includes multimode chip technologies and voice over wireless LAN.

by Eric Griffith Managing Editor, 80211Planet [June 3, 2002]

At the CONNECTIONS 2002 show in Dallas last month, the Home Radio Frequency (HomeRF) Working Group revealed what is in the future for its wireless home networking technology—plans which include working in tandem with 5 GHz 802.11a-based wireless LAN products.

HomeRF Communications Chairman Wayne Caswell says the reason for this is not because HomeRF can't do what 802.11a does, but more that 802.11a (or Wi-Fi5) has already done it well.

"We can extend the speed of HomeRF, and maintain full backwards compatibility," says Caswell. "But to go to 5 GHz for the greater bandwidth would break compatibility. So we decided it doesn't make sense to do a 5 GHz spec for HomeRF since 802.11a has come along so well."

Caswell is also quick to point out that this is simply HomeRF's endorsement of 802.11a networking for high-speed data use—it is not a partnership between the two groups.

HomeRF has been overshadowed in the marketplace by 802.11b-based networks—research back in 2001 showed that 71 percent of all wireless nodes shipped were based on 802.11b. Both technologies use the 2.4GHz radio band, but 802.11b possessed early on a faster data rate and far more aggressive marketing by manufacturers. It didn't help HomeRF when companies like Intel dropped their technology in favor of 802.11b.

The market is a different place now, and Caswell sees 802.11b as a "dead end technology." "You won't even have 802.11b in a couple of years, it will go away," he says. "[In its place] will be multi-mode chip technologies that will have Bluetooth, b, a, HomeRF, HyperLan, etcetera. That way I'm ready overseas with HyperLan, or at the office with 802.11a, or Starbucks which is 802.11b or at home with HomeRF."

Caswell says the working group considered doing a flavor of Quality of Service (QoS) for HomeRF, but, again, it didn't make sense to do so because of the move to embrace 802.11a. Even though 802.11a doesn't have the QoS, he says that will eventually come out of the 802.11e task group.

With 802.11b as the dominant player in the market and 802.11a as the up-and-comer, where does HomeRF fit in for the future?

Voice is where HomeRF is heading, possibly as an actual standard for use by cordless phones (compared to the mish-mash of 900 MHz to 2.4 GHz phones out there today using a variety of frequency hopping technologies).

Voice will play the critical role for HomeRF, he says, "because consumers are used to cordless phones. They're used to phones having base stations. If the base can be a wireless router also, and they can share broadband, that's how the mass market will go to home networking.

HomeRF 2.0-based voice products have been trickling out of the market from companies like Siemens (where Caswell has his day-job), but no where near the floodgates that Wi-Fi products have had in the last year.

"If we were to paint a picture, it would be different than today's early adopter market," says Caswell. "[Today] that means skilled users installing networks to share broadband. So it's data. That's not a picture of a mass market. We think what will drive a mass market is more broadband carriers—consumers don't care about the technology, they just want the service."

HomeRF's 2.1 specifications will also extend the range of devices, increase the number of active phone sets that can be used simultaneously, and possibly increase throughput up to 20 Mbps.

Caswell will be a speaker, along with current chair of the HomeRF Working Group Ken Haase, at the 802.11 Planet Conference & Expo in Philadelphia on June 12. They'll both attend the panel covering HomeRF's new relationship with 802.11 networks.

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