10Mbps Home Networking Standard by Year-End.

The Home Phoneline Networking Alliance - the body which oversees home networking standards - said this week that it expects to have the next generation 10Mbps home networking standard published by the second half of 1999. The San Ramon, California group says it is currently evaluating a number of competing specifications although only three groups: Lucent and Epigram, Tut Systems and Broadcom and CP Clare, have publicly stated their intentions to compete to have their specification go forward as the industry standard. Cyrus Anmazi, home networking marketing manager for AMD and chairman of HomePNA, told ComputerWire that the submissions would be evaluated during the second quarter, whereupon one will be selected, put through its paces and, depending on the outcome, put forward for endorsement as the official standard.

The current standard, which runs at 1Mbps, is based on technology developed by Tut, and vendors developing products have to pay a license fee to Tut to use the spec. Anmazi said whichever spec was selected it would be backward compatible  with old 1Mbps products, although networks using both 1Mbps and 10Mbps products will only operate at the slower speed. The news follows the launch of Intel Corp's first line of home networking products earlier this week. The chip giant joins such heavyweights as Compaq Computer Corp, 3Com Corp, Microsoft Corp and Lucent Technologies Inc, all of whom have developed products, or announced plans to do so, over the last few months. Moreover, Anmazi says membership of HomePNA is growing by the day as more and more vendors rush to gain a slice of the lucrative home networking pie. The group's membership has shot up by 60% over the last quarter bringing the total to over 60 members, 30 of whom have signed on since the beginning of the year.

Anmazi added that HomePNA is currently looking at ways to broaden its reach to markets outside North America. He said the group was carrying out research in the UK and Japan as to the feasibility of tweaking the US standard to enable those countries, and others within Europe, to develop home networking products. "The number of households with multiple PCs in the USA is increasing every day, but the penetration is not as high in Europe," he said, "but we think Europe will definitely follow and we want to make sure the standards are in place when that happens." Currently, there are issues as to which devices can be plugged into the local phone network. In the US, home-owners own the physical equipment (the phone jack and wires) whereas in Europe it belongs to the carriers, Anmazi said. The group hopes to be able to make the results of its study available some time in the second quarter and begin work on the standards this year.