Future home

By Kate Castellari

The digital home has been largely seen as a pipe dream and since the early 1960s derided in films of the day such as The Party featuring Peter Sellers and Mon Oncle with Jacques Tate.

A dig at modernity, these homes had all their electronics centrally controlled – only to come severely unstuck at awkward social situations.

While these films are still amusing today they are only wrong in that the technology is let down by the network and central controls.

Today intelligent networks run by a central hub are already available in the US and pundits say are a work in progress in Australia, but set to become a common reality when we build the National Broadband Network (NBN) over the next two years.

However, for those not willing to wait we already have a number of ‘smart home’ technologies available to us. These technologies are mostly in the form of home networking equipment for activities such as sharing a broadband connection and file sharing and increasingly for applications such as audio and video streaming in the home.

In the news recently, Apple launched its iTunes Movies offering for video on demand over broadband and with it many are predicting the death of TV and that the only broadcasts watched would be sport.

Some researchers such as Forrester Research predict that Apple could become the hub of the digital home by 2013. Forrester predicts that Apple will offer eight key products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the TV-stereo infrastructure in consumers’ homes. ?

The Apple Store will expand into in-home installation services to deliver what Forrester describes as a “fully integrated digital experience”.

With the predominance of ADSL2+ there will also be a shift that will tip the scales towards online entertainment.

Wireless technology in the 802.11n standard represents the latest generation of wireless technology allowing for the transfer of data at speeds of up to 350 megabits per second to a variety of home devices.

Pundits say the standard is set to bring the household equipment to life and allow the devices to connect to each other and converge the PC, TV, game machine and stereo.

According to research firm IDC, the market for home networking equipment in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region continues to grow at pace.

Research indicates the major drivers of home networking adoption are broadband subscribers, multiple-PC ownership, and consumer notebook sales, while the more mature markets have shown signs of readiness for applications such as audio and video streaming at the home.

“Throughout the forecast period, the total number of households with a home network in APEJ will increase from 6.9 million in 2007 to 32.6 million in 2012, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.2 percent,” the researcher said.

“The lack of networked audio/video devices and integrated online media services, as well as the delays in the development of 802.11n, continue to affect the adoption of multimedia and entertainment home networks across APEJ.”

By 2012, multimedia networks will be installed in 6.8 million households at a rate of 51.6 percent, while entertainment networks will be deployed in nearly
2.8 million households at a rate of 62.3 percent.

According to Roger Geerts, director of systems engineering Australia and New Zealand at Juniper Networks, the network into the home is being driven by consumer demand for content on devices such as TV and advances in delivery via devices such as personal recorders and video on demand.

“With content from offerings such as YouTube consumers are being offered more choice,” Geerts said. “The more people have, the more people want. And they want to be able to access video content easier and they want to hold it centrally in the network.

“What we are seeing is a push for networked-based services with video streaming coming together with Cloud Computing and storing it all on a network,” Geerts explained.

“More providers such as Juniper are offering to network more people and more people can access that network-based content in a simple-to-use format.”
Geerts added that the average consumer can take that up, but consumers want their networks to give more control over how services are delivered to them.

“They want to control their own policy and how much content goes to a particular house, such as how many users are able to view the content at any one time and this requires an intelligent network and users who can understand boundaries and accessibility.

“It is all possible,” he said. “We have already delved in to some markets in Australia and we are just waiting on the National Broadband Network. The technology is there today and in terms of content we have to look at digital rights technology.

“While we don’t have the broadband speeds needed yet, in five years the only thing that you would watch as a TV broadcast is sporting events that make sense
to see live.

“What we will see is a mass customisation with people all watching individual content and as providers move to use more targeted advertising.”
Geerts explained that more and more devices around the home can now be networked and incorporated in to the smart home with a wider appeal than we have ever had before.

“The trend towards a smart home and the emphasis on making everything greener and environmentally friendly is more popular as the home takes advantage of newer technologies and the smart house becomes more available in new homes.”

Networking giant Cisco reports that consumers are set to deploy a wealth of electronic devices over their wireless home networks and not just PCs and printers but appliances such as stereos and televisions.

Cisco sees the latest home network operating as a “base for new multimedia-enabled applications, tools and capabilities”.

Likewise, Vincent Kennedy, chief engineer networking applications group at NEC, said the main drivers for home networking in Australia are centred on entertainment.

“Home networks are increasingly being used for home entertainment such as video distribution by media centres,” Kennedy said.

“Media centres are set to dominate and used to distribute signals around the house including HD-TV at up to 10 megabits per second per channel.

“The device will most likely be similar to the DVD player but the future of TV will be installed as a media server,” he said.

“At the moment we have an array of different media servers which are moving forward to an appliance-type device similar in look and feel as a DVD player.

“Another of the drivers is the cost of storage. Any application has to be cost-effective so as to replace DVDs with a media centre.”
Kennedy said that while the industry has yet to adopt these media centres, mass-market solutions are beginning to emerge.

“It will end up that wherever there is a TV, it will be linked to the media centre which will stream HD content to the TV, while offering convergence with appliances such as video phones.”

Secondary to this is home automation, in addition to entertainment, the network can be used for voice networks and typically merging applications such as voice IP and video IP and appliances such as airconditioners, also IP controlled.

Kennedy explained that much of the technology is already available in the form of technologies such as broadband delivery via electricity cables.

As part of NEC’s solution set the company offers a plug-and-play product range designed for broadband over powerlines.

David Cannon, program manager for communications at researcher IDC, said the challenge for delivering technology for a smart home is to do so using existing infrastructure and delivering broadband over electricity cables goes a long way in achieving that end.

“We can already use cabling infrastructure of the electricity infrastructure in the house to set up LAN environment using special connections with sockets to plug into that so all sockets in the house then become a functional LAN,” Cannon said.

“It is an inexpensive way of doing it but there are issues including the spiky nature of electricity usage in the house leading to quality issues,” he added.

“But it is fine if you want to do things such as control lights etcetera with the set up of a computer in a particular room using existing infrastructure.”
He explained that looking at the market in the US shows that consumers and providers are savvier and more ahead of the curve in the US than they are in Australia when in comes to the digital home.

“Property developers there (in the US) build houses with proper cabling such as built-in ethernet cabling and a main distribution frame in a central location so residents can plug in to a server to drive the intelligence of house,” Cannon said.

“We have only begun to see that here in non-high-end houses in the past couple of years and that solution is a key selling proposition for them in creating a higher value for the home.”

Cannon explained that electricity accessory supplier Clipsal, located in South Australia, offers data communications to the home electrical automation markets.

“Clipsal offers cabling infrastructure with smart home solutions including lighting automation and airconditioning,” he said. “But basically they provide a panel on the wall that can control everything such as lights and shades.

“But if you want a smart house and don’t do it when first building you can expect to pay dearly. You would have to gut the house to run the cabling and the cost is hugely expensive.

“It has only been in the past two years that electricians have had training and focus on the smart house along with the proliferation of broadband and network functionality you get from running LANs throughout the house.”

“All rooms can then be cabled to access TV channels and Foxtel in every room, with a network system allowing for pooled multimedia content and to enable a true smart home.”

Developments in wireless standards and the latest 802.11n standard are also set to revolutionise the delivery of content to the home with the provision of faster wireless transmission.

With the latest wireless technology in the form of the 802.11n standard, transfer of data has gone from four megabits to 350 megabits per second and can transfer data to devices in the home, but is not completely up to scratch just yet.

“This technology is starting to come to life and all of your equipment in the house can connect to each other, but at the moment it is a bit iffy,” said Cannon. “We are witnessing the integration of TV and PC with users watching content on both devices – ultimately set to merge.

“Vendors such as Sony, Microsoft and Cisco through the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) are all trying to deliver an open standard and create hardware that are media-oriented and can talk to each without the spaghetti of cables at the back,” he said.

Other technologies such as Femtocell are now enabling high-tech properties by providing 3G mobile within the home.

According to Kennedy from NEC, Femtocells allow for the enablement of IP networks and IP streaming to be delivered anywhere in home.

Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections.

Femtocell technology is being seen as a cheap way of offering mobile services inside buildings offering wireless technologies with throughputs of more
than 10Mbps.

“Femtocell is about terrestrial and mobile infrastructure talking to each other,” explained Cannon. “When you walk in the door the mobile phone will connect you to a provider and let them know you are home and you will then get phone calls over broadband,

“It is about efficiencies, that you only need to buy one broadband connection and mobile phone, that is all you need – one product, one phone number and
one contact list all centralised and decomplicated in terms of getting disparate networks to talk to each other.”

Other recent developments which will contribute to the evolution and connectivity of home devices include the development of Tru2way – a technology that allows for the development of “two-way” digital televisions and other devices that can receive interactive digital and high-definition video services without the use of a set-top box.

“Tru2way is the big topic in the US and is centred around a number of vendors working with service providers such as Foxtel,” Cannon said.

“In the US everyone has cable TV and the thing about cable TV is you need a set-top box and what Tru2way has is a set-top box inbuilt into the TV and
as we move forward we will see more of that.

“People think LCD or plasma have reached their zenith but what we have now is that you will have a wireless router, modem or set-top box and just plug it in with Internet connection.

However, Cannon added that at the moment cable subscription is a proprietary system that does not mix well with others.

“What happens now is if a customer signs up with Foxtel, they sign up for 12 months and get a set-top box but that doesn’t work with anything else. It is
a proprietary system with that organisation.”

Cannons said that in the US, customers who don’t want to be tied down to one provider can sign on with AT&T’s U-verse product offering through a fibre-to- the-node network, similar to what we are building here, to receive TV, HD streaming, Internet browsing and a dial tone all over one infrastructure.
Another technology delivered in the US by Verizon is FIOS or fibre-optic service.

FIOS provides telephone, Internet and digital video services to the subscriber’s premises. Some areas do not have service due to franchise agreements, and some can only receive the Internet access, also due
to franchising.

“FIOS or fibre to the home is interesting because under the regulatory perspective incumbent network providers have to open up the infrastructure,” Cannon explained. “What it uses is the actual copper loop where it is still intact and we are looking at severing that link. “

“Consumers should be able to have a server- agnostic provider and that is why Tru2way will build functionality into the TV with a central hub bypassing the five boxes currently needed to run everything,” he said. “What we will see more of is the use of open standards and from home networking stemming from the AT&T U-verse product.”

For $US100 AT&T sends out two webcams, power adapters for either the fridge or airconditioner etc and an account on the website with the webcams wireless talking to an AT&T wireless router which can be logged in either from work or home and you can remotely turn on the lights or whatever else you are using for your power adaptors.

Cannon said there is a lot to look forward to in smart home technology, but the government has a lot to resolve with incumbent telecommunication and media providers.

“The big question is when are we going to see Telstra do it,” Cannon laments.

“We will start to see some services once the NBN is resolved and what we are going to do going forward.

“In five years we will see Tru2Way and the Digital Living Network Alliance come to life and that is when we get the really good stuff.

“We will get all the devices in a house to talk to each other and to shift content from one device to the other efficiently and in high quality,” he said.

“It’s about getting rid of cabling and giving more functionality built in to TVs which are connecting to the Internet and service provider.

“It is also about opening up new functionality such as video calls from one person to another using TV and communication interaction associated
with TV.”

Cannon added that how telcos fit in the digital home perspective is paramount in that they need to be able to implement across a variety of platforms – be it IP TV or TV over broadband or a cable TV solution delivered over broadband or via a mobile phone.

“Ericsson in particular has a strong play in the IPTV market service delivery platform that takes all the content and delivers it in broadband with a lot of functionality,” Cannon said.

For instance, there might be a community of people using the same solution so they can chat with each other while watching a particular game and communicate with each other.

“This turns the media centre into a powerful communications solution to come,” he said. “When we have the NBN we will have oodles of capacity and room for service providers to differentiate themselves and what they deliver over that pipe with direct competition to Foxtel.

“What we will get is a service delivery platform for IP services – while Telstra which owns Foxtel won’t do it – competitors have clear opportunities in the market for a competing IP TV product.

“While Apple has taken a big step in this whole process using the Internet, now with the launch of Apple TV whereby connected to a broadband modem users can pull down a movie cheaper than the video store and far more convenient.
Cannon said with the iTunes’ mass-market product, and now movies and TV shows, the Apple offering is just the beginning of tipping the scales towards
online entertainment.

“Apple allows you to get content from PC to TV and I think that will be the death of the video store and this is what broadband technology can do now and that is a powerful thing,” he said.

“The digital home from my perspective really should focus on digital entertainment rather than telling you when to buy milk etcetera, which although a good concept is small bickies compared to what I am talking about.

“Digital entertainment is the way forward and is really powerful stuff and when the NBN is sorted out in two years that is when we will have something interesting Australia.”