HomeGrid Forum has announced a new organisational structure that includes five Task Forces designed to support specific use cases and accelerate the deployments of network topologies.
The Task Forces are customised for Home Networking, GiGAWire/Multi Dwelling Unit (MDU)/Single Family Unit (SFU), LiFi, Smart Grid and Industrial IoT scenarios.
Chairs appointed from member companies Comtrend, TELUS, Signify, LUMISSIL Microsystems, and Teleconnect have been tasked to drive the interoperability efforts for the key topologies and profiles identified by service providers, electric utilities and digital industries that are engaged in broadband deployments.
The Home Networking, GiGAWire, LiFi, Smart Grid, and Industrial IoT Task Forces will be responsible for championing G.hn as the interoperable and cost-effective backbone for seamless interconnectivity for the respective market segments.
The Task Force Chairs will each publish a Charter that defines connectivity goals and deployment milestones, and each will be responsible for reporting progress of activities to the HomeGrid Forum Board and Members Meetings.
Livia Rosu, HomeGrid Forum President, said: “This is an exciting time for HomeGrid Forum with the creation of five dedicated Task Forces, as G.hn has become a critical component of a widening portfolio of devices and use cases. As global connectivity demands continue to rise at an unprecedented pace, HomeGrid Forum’s Task Forces will be driving forward G.hn to support anywhere broadband for challenging topologies. G.hn has been recognised for enabling the most disruptive connectivity scenarios shaping our future, from Artificial Intelligence-based automation and robotics to Virtual/Augmented Reality and Smart Cities services needing the highest infrastructure resilience.”
Paul Keator, Principal Engineer – System Architecture, DISH Network and the Chair of the HomeGrid Forum added: “I am delighted to chair the innovative framework of the forum members’ advancements in addressing a vast range of use cases and topologies with the versatile G.hn technology. The new organisational structure, including the new Task Forces, is a clear representation of our members’ needs and requirements.”
Tom Barnett, LUMEN Director Strategic Innovation and Vice President of the HomeGrid Forum, highlighted: “LUMEN has been directly involved in monitoring G.hn technology from extensive field trials to live deployments addressing MDUs, SFUs and a variety of complicated fiber extension scenarios. Solving service delivery challenges were only made possible by carefully tailoring the functionalities to match the network planning and topologies by capitalising on the coax and copper plants.”
The Chair of the Home Networking Task Force, Comtrend’s Head of Product Planning Edward Yu, said: “G.hn technology has already significantly advanced broadband connectivity, with the higher data rates and lower latency offered by G.hn making it perfect for a stable home network backbone. As we have started a new Working-From-Home era that comes with connectivity challenges, I am looking forward to chairing this Task Force to further support service providers deployments for taking the home office connectivity to the next level.”
Tomer Cohen, Product Manager at LUMISSIL Microsystems – a division of ISSI and HomeGrid Forum Board Director, will now also lead the Smart Grid Task Force and declared: “As the HomeGrid Forum portfolio expands, it is great to see the creation of dedicated Task Forces that bring together the experience and expertise of members. Our work will drive forward the use of G.hn to ensure compliance and interoperability for applications across the Smart Grid sector and support the electric utilities engaged in Smart Cities deployments built on G.hn infrastructure.”
The LiFi Task Force will be led by Musa Unmehopa, Head of Ecosystems and Strategic Alliances at Trulifi by Signify, who brings over 20 years of experience to the position. He said: “I am thrilled to have been appointed as the Chair of the LiFi Task Force to transform wireless communications and look forward to working with other HomeGrid Forum members to grow the G.hn standards-based interoperability ecosystem for LiFi. This is an exciting time for G.hn as we see a growing interest for LiFi use cases for corporate offices, airports, banks and government organisations, as well as digital industries that require high security and low latency connectivity.”
The Industrial IoT Task Force will be co-chaired by Alexandre Schäfer, Head of Sales, and Philipp Rietzsch, R&D Project Manager, at Teleconnect GmbH. “ Teleconnect is proud to be an early adopter of G.hn technology and has been involved with HomeGrid Forum for many years. We have already witnessed G.hn transforming operations in industrial environments with reliable and fast connectivity, playing a key role in maximising the benefits of the fourth Industrial Revolution.
IoT devices and machine-to-machine communication require interoperable and reliable connectivity above all. G.hn is the perfect technology to combine Gigabit capability with common industrial interfaces, and we are looking forward to driving HomeGrid Forum’s Industrial IoT vision.”
Paul Arola, Telus Senior Design Specialist, has been appointed as Chair of the GiGAWire Task Force.
“Telus has long been a huge proponent of G.hn technology, having first carried out lab testing with G.hn Wave-1 equipment back in 2014 and continuing with the G.hn Wave-2 based deployment in 2021. As Chair, my priority will be leading the GiGAWire Task Force to accelerate G.hn Access scenario deployments, allowing service providers to deliver cutting edge broadband access services to SFUs and MDUs that are unable to be served with fiber all the way. Leveraging coax and twisted pair infrastructure for the last network segment, G.hn Access profile for GiGAWire allows for innovative use of Network Function Virtualisation, supporting cross-talk mitigation and traffic measurements extremely useful for deploying faster and more cost-effective.”
Quentin Cellarius, Manager In-Home Engineering, Telenet/Liberty Global and Board Director of the HomeGrid Forum, added: “Service providers are the true innovators in enabling seamless home-networking technologies. Offering highly reliable internet residential services for smart homes, online gaming and a wide variety of use cases, continues to be our top priority for supporting our subscribers and G.hn technology can provide the desired Quality of Experience.”
Hyung-Jin Park, Principle Senior Researcher R&D Lab, KT Corporation and Board Director of the HomeGrid Forum, declared: “GiGAWire solution builds on the ITU-T G.996x standard for G.hn Access profile and is a critical component of the global effort to adopt the FTTep (Fiber to the extension point) architecture to accelerate the deployment of carrier-grade broadband equipment, leveraging existing copper infrastructure.”
Marcos Martinez, MaxLinear Senior Standardisation Expert and Chair of the HomeGrid Forum’s Contributions Working Group, highlighted: “The HomeGrid Forum Members are using the strong foundation of the ITU-T standardisation framework to build reliable network infrastructures capable of addressing secure and reliable connectivity for a wide range of innovative deployment scenarios.”
Abdul Khan, Chair of the HomeGrid Forum’s Certification and Interoperability Working Group added: “We invite all members to attend the kick-off meetings of the respective Task Forces to learn more about the next steps regarding interoperability, certification and deployment scenarios for each topology.”
