IEEE P1901 WG Selects Powerline Communications Coexistence Proposal Supported By DS2
DS2 announced that a proposal originally co-authored by UPA, CEPCA and other IEEE members was selected last week as the single proposal for an eventual coexistence mechanism for access and in home Powerline Communications applications. The proposal which DS2 supported was approved in the IEEE P1901 Working Group (WG) process towards developing a baseline specification for Powerline Communications.
It is claimed that one of the most important advantages of the coexistence proposal is to ensure that access systems deployed by power companies or service providers can share resources with any in-home system deployed in the same area. The proposal enjoyed significant consensus from the WG.
Core technical elements included in the "coexistence cluster" proposal are the result of work developed by the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) jointly with other industry members since 2005 to fulfil key requirements defined by leading companies working in powerline access and in-home applications.. This approach has been followed also at ETSI PLT, where a work item was specifically approved, creating a draft specification. DS2 products are ready to support the key elements of the proposal.
The coexistence cluster is one of the three technical themes that the P1901 Working Group is studying with a view to developing a baseline proposal. The other two clusters, the Access and In-home clusters, have selected proposals that include technology originally pioneered by DS2, such as 200 Mbps data rate, "dense OFDM" modulations with a large number of carriers, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) MAC and advanced Quality of Service (QoS) for Audio/Video applications.
According to DS2, although the selection of a single coexistence proposal based on the original UPA-authored work is a step in the right direction, significant work in the other two clusters is still required before the process can move to the next step.
DS2 states that it is working with members of the IEEE working group to ensure that the expectations of the market, particularly regarding cost effective interoperability become an essential element of the process in IEEE P1901 for the benefit of all industry stakeholders, including consumers, service providers, device manufacturers and silicon vendors.
