HomePNA Begins Work on New Specification Supporting 320 Megabits per Second Over Coax and Phonelines; Alliance Announces Election of New Officers; Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco Company, 2Wire, and AT&T Assume Leadership Roles.

SAN RAMON, Calif. -- The HomePNA alliance today announced that it is developing significant enhancements to the HomePNA 3.0 specification, setting a new benchmark for multimedia home networking. The HomePNA 3.1 specification, which builds upon HomePNA 3.0 technology standardized by the ITU in May 2005, is intended to provide the highest speed option for in-home distribution of new triple-play services such as IPTV.

HomePNA 3.1 will retain the significant features that make HomePNA 3.0 uniquely suited to the needs of service providers for the distribution of real time data such as HDTV, including guaranteed quality of service (QoS), low cost, robust performance, and the ability to operate simultaneously over both phonelines and coax cables. The highly efficient protocol will enable user throughput close to the data rate while additional enhancements will enable HomePNA 3.1 to also support multi-band operation for even higher network throughput.

"As new high speed services such as TelcoTV get deployed, competitive pressures keep driving up the requirements for home networking speeds," said Mark Kirstein, Vice President of Multimedia Content and Services for iSuppli. "Technologies such as Fiber to the Home and VDSL2 can increase access speeds to 100 Mbps and enable Telcos to offer new revenue-bearing services to home owners. Home networking speeds must increase as well."

Work on the new specification is expected to be completed summer 2006. HomePNA member companies intend to present recommendations based on version 3.1 to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) after it has been released to the membership.

HomePNA also announced new executive officers to its board of directors. David Alsobrook, Director, IPTV Products at Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, takes on the role of Secretary, and Jaime Fink, Director of Product Marketing at 2Wire, takes on the role of Treasurer for the alliance. Rich Nesin, VP of Marketing at Coppergate Communications, will continue in the role as president of HomePNA. Additionally, the HomePNA board selected Phyllis Anderson, technical standards manager at AT&T Labs, to serve as chairperson of the HomePNA technical committee.

"HomePNA's new officers will continue to expand the organization and promote usage of the technology in emerging high growth applications such as TelcoTV," said Rich Nesin, President of HomePNA. "Our board members have extensive backgrounds in the home networking, IPTV and service provider segments, and will continue working to enhance the technology and educate the industry about the benefits of HomePNA."

About HomePNA

HomePNA is an incorporated, non-profit association of industry-leading companies working together to help ensure the adoption of networking industry standards using existing home wiring. Members of HomePNA develop industry standards over both phone line and coax cables with the intent to rapidly bring to market a range of interoperable data and audio/video home networking solutions.

Founded in June 1998, HomePNA's membership includes cutting-edge international companies spanning the networking, telecommunications, hardware, software and consumer electronics industries. For more information on HomePNA visit www.homepna.org.