IEEE P1905.1

[Monedeath]

Thought I'd point this one out to people since it doesn't seem to be mentioned on the forums here just yet. At first glance, it looks like something SageTV might want to keep an eye on, as it could potentially have some impacts on AllVid, as they're essentially working on creating a topology that AllVid would then need to be able to tie into/interact with.

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1905/1/index.html

Convergent Digital Home Network Working Group

Title: P1905.1, Draft Standard for a Convergent Digital Home Network for Heterogeneous Technologies

Scope: The standard defines an abstraction layer for multiple home networking technologies. The abstraction layer provides a common data and control Service Access Point to the heterogeneous home networking technologies described in the following specifications: IEEE 1901, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.3 and MoCA 1.1. The standard is extendable to work with other home networking technologies.

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.

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.

Purpose: The abstraction layer common interface allows applications and upper layer protocols to be agnostic to the underlying home networking technologies. The purpose of the standard is to facilitate the integration of 1901 with other home networking technologies.

Additionally the purpose of the standard is to define an abstraction layer that allows: Common Network Setup among heterogeneous network technologies defined in the PAR and provide same user experience in the process of adding a device to the network and the same user experience while setting an encryption key; Intelligent network interface and path selection for delivery of packets that provides Improved coverage performance, Improved data rate on poorest link, Improved network capacity, Improved network reliability and QoS, support for end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) for different traffic classes; Seamless / transparent path switching; Real time mapping of connection links and paths for each traffic class / stream; Green - energy management.

And interview with one of the participants in the working group can be found here:

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/ant...ork/2011-04-21

Members of the working group listed as of today:
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1905/1/Participants.htm

Atheros
Broadcom
Cisco
Entropic Communications
France Telecom
HD-PLC
HomeGrid Forum
HomePlug
HomePNA Alliance, Inc.
Intel
Lantiq
Marvell
MoCA
Panasonic
Ralink Technology
Sagemcom
Sigma Designs
SPiDCOM Technologies
STMicroeletronics
Toshiba Research Europe Ltd.
Verizon