Agreement signed to support wireline networking standard

The UPA is an industry consortium providing a forum for the development of interoperable and open specifications to cover all powerline markets and applications. The HomeGrid Forum is a global, non profit trade group promoting international telecommunication union's standardisation sector (ITU-T) G.hn standardisation efforts for multimedia over coax, power and phone lines. Under the multi year MOU, the UPA and HomeGrid Forum are committed to creating a single, global MAC and PHY protocol for transporting multimedia across a home’s existing wiring. In December 2008 the G.hn standard group reached consent on a single PHY protocol for next generation wireline technologies. Daniel Drolet, chairman of the UPA, said: "This alliance will combine the technical and marketing capabilities of both organisations and its international members allowing the ability to successfully meet market challenges and to further enhance interoperable and coexistent networking technologies for the benefit of consumers worldwide. The UPA sees the HomeGrid Forum as an excellent catalyst to driving a single standard for the next generation home network and we are happy to contribute to that effort." President of the HomeGrid Forum, Matt Theall, Intel Corporation, added: "HomeGrid's goal of a single specification and standard for 1Gbps home networking on all wires: coax, electrical lines, and phone lines will greatly benefit from the UPA's contributions given their broad experience and worldwide deployments of Powerline and Coaxial networking devices."