The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) and HomePlug Powerline Alliance may use different wires to carry voice and data signals in the home network, but the two groups are finding that they could benefit by working together. To wit, the groups have entered into a formal liaison agreement to share information through educational and informational programs that will promote new multimedia applications and the advantages of home networking.
Currently, the two groups are developing their own next-gen home networking specification (MoCA 2.0 and HomePlug AV2) that they say will be able to deliver Gigabit services that can interoperate with their already-deployed technology. In addition to expanding higher speed specifications HomePlug and MoCA are developing specifications for Smart Grid applications.
This latest union of MoCA and HomePlug comes on the heels of the ITU-T group's approval of the Physical Layer and architecture components of the G.hn home networking specification that promises to provide a unified home networking standard that can accommodate phone lines, powerlines and coax. However, MoCA and HomePlug, citing concerns over backward compatibility, have continued to oppose the G.hn efforts.
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