G.hn- standard compliant devices for Smart Grid applications- expected to become a $165 billion market during the next 20 years

DS2 confirms plans for new chipset compliant with recently approved G.hn standard

Newly ratified ITU-T G.hn standard unifies powerline, phoneline and coaxial networking industry, and is poised to become the dominant wireline communication standard for Telco, CE, PC and Smart Grid markets
Valencia, Spain, October 9th 2009 – DS2, the leading technology innovator and global supplier of high-speed powerline communications technology, today confirmed its plan to launch its G.hn-compliant DSS9960 chipset next year.

At a meeting this week, the International Telecommunications Union's Standardization Sector (ITU-T) gave final approval to the G.hn specification, which becomes the first international standard for high-speed transmission over power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables. Approval of the G.hn standard marks a major step forward on the road to a unified market for wireline products. G.hn offers silicon manufacturers like DS2 a stable technical specification based on a single PHY/MAC to speed up the development of standard-compliant products such as the future DSS9960 chipset.

"This approval provides us with a solid technical specification so that we can finalize development of our G.hn-compatible DSS9960 chipset in the coming months. The DSS9960 is designed to meet increasing bandwidth requirements and will provide much higher performance than products available today, at a very low cost. We will offer seamless interoperability between our current 100 Mbit/s and 200 Mbit/s UPA-compliant products and the future G.hn-compliant DSS9960 chipset," said Jorge Blasco, President and CEO, DS2.

G.hn is positioned as the perfect solution for any application that requires a fast and reliable connection over existing wiring. G.hn is expected to become the dominant wireline communication standard in a wide range of market segments, including IPTV Service Providers, networked Consumer Electronics and Personal Computing, and Smart Grid applications.

In addition to providing a significant performance improvement over existing proprietary technologies, the group of experts developing G.hn made a focused effort to ensure that G.hn-compliant devices will achieve a very high degree of energy efficiency. This is especially important for manufacturers of G.hn-compliant devices for Smart Grid applications, which according to the Electric Power Research Institute is expected to become a $165 billion market during the next 20 years.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the United States Commerce Department, has included G.hn as one the "Standards Identified for Implementation" in its latest draft of "NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards".

"DS2 has been one of the most active participants in the development of G.hn, working closely with other ITU-T members. The next logical step is the completion of a strict Compliance and Interoperability (C&I) Program to ensure that all G.hn-based implementations work well together. HomeGrid Forum, of which DS2 is a founding member and strong supporter, is working to quickly develop this C&I Program," added Chano Gomez.