A standard designed to bridge the hodgepodge of home networking methods – wireless, wireline and powerline – is moving forward, promising a consolidated approach to creating and managing home networks.
IEEE 1905.1 proposes to create an abstraction layer, providing a common data and control Service Access Point for IEEE P1901 (HomePlug), IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) and MoCA 1.1. The approach is to keep the abstraction layer open to the inclusion of other networking technologies, as well.
The IEEE working group managing the development of the standard has unanimously approved a draft version of the Hybrid Networking 1905.1.
According to the committee’s explanation of 1905.1, “the abstraction layer supports dynamic interface selection for transmission of packets arriving from any interface (upper protocol layers or underlying network technologies).
“End-to-end quality of service (QoS) is supported,” according to the 1905.1 working group. “Also specified are procedures, protocols and guidelines to provide a simplified user experience to add devices to the network, to set up encryption keys, to extend the network coverage, and to provide network management features to address issues related to: neighbor discovery, topology discovery, path selection, QoS negotiation, and network control and management.
The approval of the draft is an important step toward ratification of the standard.
Filed Under: Industry regulations