Chipmakers team up for home-networking standard
Leading chip and consumer electronics companies say they are pursuing powerline networking on the road to the completely connected digital home.
Intel, Texas Instruments, Infineon, and Panasonic said Tuesday that they are working on a home-networking standard that uses electrical and phone lines and coaxial cable that consumers already have wired into their homes, according to a Reuters report.
The four are the largest members of what they are calling the HomeGrid Forum. The group says it plans to work closely with the International Telecommunications Union to promote the standard the ITU is already developing, called ITU-T G.hn. The standard enables electronic devices and PCs to be linked up to share data and content, like movies, pictures, and more.
The technology industry has yet to settle on a definitive home-networking standard and powerline is just one of the competing ideas, along with Wi-Fi, DLNA, Bluetooth, and others, although Wi-Fi is the best established of the group.
The HomeGrid Forum says it hopes to have products using the standard by next year.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
