G.hn is a home networking standard developed by the United Nation’s ITU-T that supports gigabit speed communication over power lines, coaxial cables and phone lines. For example, if you have two notebooks with G.hn compatible chargers they would have access to the local network when plugged into a power outlet. The installation is simple and easy. The broadband modems will need an adapter to connect it to the home power grid. This technology is great for HD content distribution around the home.
What does this mean for Fon? Right now Foneras need an Ethernet connection to the ISP’s broadband router. This means their location at home is restricted. With G.hn the Fonera doesn’t need this and it can be placed anywhere in the house where there is a power, coaxial cable or phone line outlet. This means that you can place your Fonera wherever you want, to help you make more money by selling wifi or to increase wifi coverage at home.
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Maradonalds on September 29, 2009 ·
Martin, I have a Fonera 1.0 placed in my terrace connected to my broadband router wich is in the opposite side of the house using 2 ethernet-powerline adapters, so I have WiFi in my terrace as well as in the portion of street under it.
steven on September 29, 2009 ·
I tried it once with a fonera… but most of the time the fonera ended up with “something wrong with internet connection”… it’s dhcp request didn’t get relayed in a timely fashion or something like that… static ip worked …
In the meanwhile I got a nice offer : Zyxel PLA 400 which are basicly 2 wifi-g accesspoints which are connected through “powerline” inside…
so you have 2 accesspoints in the house and instead of wireless WDS they are connected through their own powercable… only 1 needs to have broadband wan access…
it would be nice if the Fonera 2n would support
* WDS (the Linksys FON once had this!) -> wireless repeating
* POE (the Ubiquity nanostations are very popular and in same price range as fonera… they can even contain openwrt as well)
* powerline inside?
I believe you once blogged about the “modus”…some kind of mobile phone where people could extend it with “modules” adding these gimmicks they require… eg some need adsl modem… well let’s plug/order an adsl plug instead of network/cable wan plug… some need poe…let’s order the poe enabled plug…
it’s more interesting than having 5 devices for just networking in the end…
Mostly : powerplugs require their own power connector…they don’t like power splitters…check out develo 🙁
besanes on September 29, 2009 ·
I vote yes to Fonera Gh.n !! sounds really cool.
steven on September 29, 2009 ·
I also heared “powerplugs” are not very favored by Radio Amateurs…it disturbs short frequency.
Also these powerplugs “use” a lot of power even when not in use…they don’t come with a “green energy” label yet…like current generation of Dect phones.
Btw Gigabit is overkill for La Fonera…it only uses 100mbit 🙂 you can still use 1st generation powerplugs (12mbit)…If I read your performance chart in a prior blog entry it could max do 8mbit/s so…
iurgi on September 29, 2009 ·
steven, it’s 8MB/s
steven on September 29, 2009 ·
Okay I tested this…
Using gigabit (7200rpm SATA) at the WAN side and gigabit at the LAN side of the fonera 2N I get the following speed:
2743849025 bytes received in 286.27 secs (9360.1 kB/s) using ftp so yes… -> 75Mbit/s … which is nice for a 100mbit ROUTER…
Bernino on September 29, 2009 ·
200Mbps from power plants to indonesian homes via the power grid: http://planetbroadband.kejora.net/powerline.asp
Will the developing world have a chance to get online by using existing power grid? I hope so.
antoin O Lachtnain on September 30, 2009 ·
There are a lot of troubles with networking over power cables. The signals can spread into neighbouring houses, causing interference (though this could well be an opportunity for FON). This has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth available. This can be resolved by special shielding, but it requires an electrician (and if the electrician is going to come, he might be as well putting in some ethernet sockets).
The available bandwidth may have to be shared with other high-bandwidth equipment, like IPTV boxes.
There can be interference issues with other equipment. All the safety issues relating to running high-frequency signals through the power system have to be carefully considered.
This is an ITU-T proposed standard. This is a little unusual. These types of standards (for example, ethernet, cat 5 and just about every other sort of cable, wi-fi and many other radio standards) usually come through IEEE (whose members are engineers and engineering companies) and are ratified by ISO/IEC (which is a respected international organization whose members are countries).
Jordi - FON on September 30, 2009 ·
@Antoin, there is one good thing about being an ITU-T standard instead of IEEE… Telcos are already much more willing to integrate the solution on their CPEs, that is huge and is driving chipmakers into a rush to integrate G.HN in a way we have not see before (see for example Atheros aquiring Intellon this week for 224M$). Even the IEEE has seen the need of is own involvement and just this summer released the P1901 Draft. Technically I agree that Powerline started as “super-Beta” protocol and had all the issues you mention here, but check out the newest chipsets, things have changed big time with new players and technologies; we all know how the first WiFi devices use to interfere even with our TVsets back in the beginning of 802.11…
PIERRE BELANGER on September 30, 2009 ·
It’s not easy as you say.
First of all, in a house you have (well at least in North America) 2 120V phases that are not bounded together. This means all network equipment must share the same electric phase. So there’s 2 choices. Best solution is probably to install a bridge directly in the main electric panel to bridge the 2 phases together.
2nd, you have the neighbors that might be using the same technology or other technologies like for automation : X10, Insteon network, etc. So in the best solution, you need a filter directly in the entrance of your house to FILTER incoming “traffic” (noise) as well as to make sure your own traffic does not get out of the house … unless, which I hope, that “over power cable network” as REAL encryption.
PB
PIERRE BELANGER on September 30, 2009 ·
Last point that I forgot to mention, there are lots of noise produced by huge motors like air conditioning compressor, laundry dryer, etc. It might be necessary to install filters on those type of equipment to protect the rest of the network.
If they can make true 1Gb network over power cable in a 3000 square feet house, I’ll be amazed — just like modem went from 110 baud to “virtually” 56Kb!
Pb
Jordi - FON on September 30, 2009 ·
@Pb, the new ones all come with filters by default, check out the new models coming out in the following months and you will be gladly surprised.
besanes on September 30, 2009 ·
I don´t know how many times I´ve heard people complaining about WiFi for many different reasons. But basically WiFi works for most of the cases.
That´s what is happening with ITU Gh.n technology, after more than 10 years of efforts, it just works. You cannot find a single Telco in Europe, US, Asia that is not using Powerline or Coax solution as an alternative for wifi in case of distributing video within the home. Check this out http://j.mp/2786o5 (sorry is in spanish) and go to prices, that´s a fact.
The main issue that Gh.n Powerline-Coax-Phoneline technologies have had is that there was a non standard single PHY-single Mac like Gh.n.
Sadly, most of the issues you´re mentioning are the remains of an internal battle until reaching the standard.
@Jordi – FON, thxs!
antoin O Lachtnain on October 4, 2009 ·
Thanks for all that info! It sounds to me like this will work extremely well in some countries which have a certain standard for home wiring, and not so well in other places where the wiring is done differently.
This is slightly off-topic, but I wish that telcos would simply hold some training courses, and teach regular domestic electricians how to wire Cat5. It’s a cheap and well-understood technology at this stage. There is really no point in wiring a house anymore without putting in a couple of Cat5 sockets.
besanes on October 5, 2009 ·
@ Antoin, nobody wants to drill for re-wiring a house if there is another solution (wifi success is an example), even most of new houses can have cat5 wiring done, remember they’ll need additional equipment like a switch and who is going to support this?
It’s clear that there is no unique solution for all the cases, I think a combined cat5/wifi/Gh.n powerline solution will always work.
antoin O Lachtnain on October 5, 2009 ·
Definitely, no one wants to drill holes or mess with floorboards if there is any alternative. All I am saying is that the sooner we start wiring our housing stock for data, the sooner we will be done. Houses are rewired every thirty-fifty years. Few houses are being rewired with Cat5 even now. Few new builds have cat5, because it is perceived as a specialist, expensive job (at least in ireland).
Many telcos provide a four-port switch at present. Even with all the advantages of a powerline approach, I think it will be a lot easier to support a switch with cat5 than powerline.
You are definitely right – you will always need a combination of technologies. Even if you have Cat5 in every room, you still need wi-fi. powerline will work some places, wi-fi bridging or cabling will work better in others.
steven on October 5, 2009 ·
at the moment politicians are pushing for “fiber at the home” as well
I’m curious when to find the first houses delivered with it…currently just a 30points plan…
for ethernet… when visiting the “do it yourself” chains like Gamma/hubo/whatever… the RJ45 are hard to find… only RJ11 are easy found (incl adsl filter)
antoin O Lachtnain on October 5, 2009 ·
Most countries have at least a few fiber-to-the-home premises. Singapore has a plan to have FTTH everywhere in a few years. The question here is what to do with the connection when it actually gets to the home.
steven on October 5, 2009 ·
it will end up in your operators modem/switch… and then you can connect it to your router…
some people in NL or Sweden are allready noticing their current routers can not cope with speeds >50mbit
antoin O Lachtnain on October 5, 2009 ·
but how do you distribute it within your house?
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Marc on September 29, 2009 ·
Ya hay algun producto comercial que utilize este sistema?