Multimedia home networks: standards and interfaces

Nowadays, wireline/wireless, mature and cost-effective solutions for both the access and the in-home network exist. Interconnecting the diverse in-home with the broadband access networks offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase the networking customer base beyond the satiated corporate environment. However, the large variety of noninteroperable residential and access networks retard the large deployment. In this paper, we briefly present a Home Network Architecture and a number of alternative access and indoor network media protocols. Moreover, we describe selected, higher-layer proposals and standardisation efforts, which aim to solve the interoperability problem. These technologies are independent from the physical medium and the lower layers, and aim to provide convergence between multiple home and access networks. Moreover, we propose a solution based on the Residential Gateway (RG) device. The RG is a single point of access and indoor networks convergence, which carries out the switching functions for telecommunication, computing and entertainment service deliveries to the end-users. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.