Will powerline home networking finally sizzle at CES?

With iPod- and MP3-enabled home networked audio systems now launched by multiple vendors, and a major test by DirecTV reportedly set for early in 2008, will networking on powerlines actually start to shine at this year's CES?

With CES just a few short weeks away now, people are giving more thought to what trends we'll see. Some say that powerline -- a type of network that runs across inexpensive electrical wiring instead of cable, fiber or copper -- is finally starting to set off sparks right now.

But with so many other wired and wireless alternatives already available in the US, will CES attendees really be that interested in finding out more about using powerline for connecting their home networks today -- and maybe for receiving high-speed video transmissions from service providers at some point down the road?

Actually, powerline will take the stage early at CES. At an event called "Last Gadget Standing," Yahoo! Tech's bloggers will give their picks on the gadget most likely to withstand the test of time. One of the products that's been proposed for that honor is IO Gear's Powerline Audio System.

As outlined in a blog on Yahoo! Tech's Web site, IO Gear's product is basically a docking station for attaching devices such as CD and MP3 players and iPods -- and for then sending high quality audio over electrical wiring -- the same stuff you use for connecting refrigerators and table lamps -- to outputs such as plug-in headsets throughout your house.

But other vendors have also been busy creating new powerline-based home networking offerings, for the US and other international consumer markets.

At a Homeplug Powerline Alliance conference in October, for example, three customers of powerline chipmaker Arkados -- GigaFast, Tatung, and Russound -- each showed their own new powerline audio systems. Russound's iBridge PLC system is specifically designed to let homeowners view and control content from Apple iPods remotely, for instance.

There are lots of variations on powerline technology out there at the moment, however. According to Joyce Putscher, an analyst at In-Stat, powerline is gaining ground on a global basis because utility companies are developing "smart grid" applications to meet regional mandates to conserve on energy.

In some parts of the world, these utility grids are already supporting streaming of both video and audio to home consumer electronic (CE) devices, through a mix of broadband over powerline (BPL) technology on large utility power lines and low-speed communications on standard electrical wiring in and around the house.

At CES 2005, Digital on Silicon (DS2) demoed the use of its 200 Mbps powerline chips for just that purpose. By now, DS2's chips are in deployment among several different European service providers, including British Telecom, Spanish-based Telefonica, and Telia Sonera of Scandianvia, said Jorge Blanco, DS2's present and CEO.

At CES pre-festivities in New York this September, Blanco then talked up plans to launch a 400 Mbps version of the same technology, which is sold in the US market mainly through home networking products from Netgear.

"But in the US so far, there have been no commercial deployments of BPL among consumers," notes Chris Roden, a research analyst at Parks Associates.

Yet who needs BPL, anyway? The newest crop of home networking powerline devices can accept inputs from a wide range of sources, including satellite signals, CD players, and even legacy stereo systems, according to Oleg Logninov, president and CEO of Arkados.

Powerline runs at a different frequency and a lower voltage than the AC power used for operating electrical devices, a situation that supposedly minimizes the possibility of interference from a vacuum cleaner or a hairdryer, if not eliminating resulting slowdowns completely.

Unfortunately, though, consumers need to be aware of powerline product incompatibilities. Up to now, products from the HomePlug Power Alliance haven't been interoperable with those from DS2-- and products from neither camp have worked with the HomePlug AV protocol of vendors such as Cisco-Linksys and Zyxel.

At the end of October, though, the Power Alliance and AV groups unveiled plans to work together on a common technology within the IEEE standard group.

Also, at this point, running video over powerline is still a more difficult matter than running audio or data. DS2's Blanco admits that even 400 Mbps won't come close to supporting HDTV, for instance.

"With cable already so widely available, and FiOS now arriving, I don't see any reason why people would want to run video over powerline," Susan Eustis, principal analyst at Wintergreen Consulting, told BetaNews.

According to Roden, powerline's main advantage is that it's cheap. "If you're using powerline inside the house, you don't even need to invest in CAT wiring, of course. You can just take advantage of what's already there," he told us.

"But I don't think BPL will ever come anywhere near the speeds offered by FiOS or cable," he agreed.

Could some combination of wireless technology and powerline home networking do a better job of streaming content to consumer devices?

Some people might think so. In any event, according to Roden, satellite video provider DirecTV and Current Technologies, the producer of a smart grid utility solution, are expected to start testing powerline technology early next year among some two million consumers in the Dallas, TX area.