With the passing of its Fast Ethernet over Coax (Fast EoC) standard, HomePNA advocates such as AT&T (NYSE: T) and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and cable operators like Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC-WI) will be able to deliver even more bandwidth over existing coax to distribute IPTV and other broadband services in the homes or multi-dwelling units (MDUs) they serve.
Building on the HomePNA 3.1 standard, HomePNA claims that Fast EoC will be able to deliver performance up to 320 Mbps in regular mode and up to 640 Mbps and more than 300 Mbps of throughput in a Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) environment in the "enhanced" mode.
While the new Fast EoC can certainly enhance the bandwidth delivered in a single-family home, Fast EoC is targeted at the MDUs and Hospitality markets where service providers are simultaneously serving multiple video and broadband customers.
It appears that HomePNA not only wants to appeal to telcos, but also cable operators that have traditionally dominated the MDU and Hospitality video and even broadband market segments. That market has become competitive in recent years as traditional telcos like AT&T and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) have been targeting these two segments with their own respective video offerings.
Michael Weissman, president of HomePNA said that with the FastEoC specification "MSOs can leverage their existing cabling infrastructure to provide digital services to living units for 10 percent of the capital needed to deploy alternatives such as DOCSIS."
But while cable is an advocate of the no new wires approach via Multimedia over Coax (MoCA), HomePNA does not have the large U.S. cable MSOs as members yet.
That's just fine with HomePNA.
HomePNA said it is finding the majority of interest in Fast EoC mainly emerging markets such as India, China, South America, Russia that have not made a large investment in DOCSIS-based systems.
"We are having a lot of success with some very big service providers because the cost is 10 percent of the cost to install DOCSIS," said Rich Nesin, executive director and general manager of HomePNA in an e-mail interview with FierceTelecom. "Fast EoC HomePNA consists of a Master device, typically located in a building's wiring closet that connects to the service provider's broadband (such as an ONT) on one side and to the HomePNA endpoints in the living units over the existing coax on the other."
For more:
- see the release
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