Merger of two leading industry forums creates global organization committed to compliance and interoperability of a widening portfolio of activity
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 17 October 2019: The GiGAWire Alliance and the Home Grid Forum are merging – to create a new force in broadband access technology development and an organisation that will be structured to work across a widening portfolio covering IoT, Connected Cars, Smart Grid, Light Communications (Li-Fi) and GiGAWire MDU.
The two alliances are exhibiting at this week’s Broadband World Forum with a joint booth (G30).
“Both organizations have a lot in common and a strong focus on enabling service providers’ deployments with advanced solutions and ensuring a robust and versatile backbone, based on ITU-T G.hn technology – designed to work on any wire, designed to fit any network topology” said Marketing Chair Livia Rosu.
“From the HomeGrid Forum side we will provide continued support to GiGAWire members on system certification through strict compliance and interoperability testing for service providers’ smoother and faster deployment. As G.hn technology is at the core of systems for in-home and broadband access deployments (in MDUs and last mile network segments), the new organization automatically ensures end-to-end coexistence and interoperability at all levels,” she added.
The new organization will be structured to provide marketing and technical support to each of the market segments: Home Networking, IoT, Connected Cars, Smart Grid, Light Communications (Li-Fi) and GiGAWire MDU.
The GiGAWire Alliance was created in 2017 as a unified industry effort by service providers, equipment vendors and silicon vendors to create an ecosystem that ensured continuous improvement of broadband access network solutions based on ITU-T G.hn standards.
Its work has been dedicated to enabling next-generation access networks that deliver faster-than-gigabit broadband services, with a focus on helping service providers to leverage existing in-building copper infrastructure (phone lines, UTP cables and coaxial cables) to deploy broadband networks at a fraction of the cost of traditional FTTH deployments.
GiGAWire extended applicability of G.hn to provide broadband access to the premises environment, including large apartment complexes, single family units and office buildings. It provided crosstalk mitigation and auto pairing features to support multiple users using bundle cable.
“The GiGAWire solution can easily improve Internet connection speed up to 10 times over VDSL in the premises environment where optical fiber cannot be deployed for technical or historical preservation reasons. Adding GiGAWire’s experience and access deployment knowledge to the work of the HomeGrid Forum will give the combined organization massive potential as the industry moves forward,” said Rosu.
HomeGrid Forum and GiGAWire Alliance members are displaying their products for a full range of network topologies at Broadband World Forum booth G30 in Amsterdam on October 15 -17.
GiGAWire Alliance Board member and HomeGrid Forum Promoter member Korea Telecom (KT) is also attending the Broadband World Forum, where they have been invited to speak about the world-leading position they have established in broadband provision for both homes and businesses.
JP Lee, Vice President of the KT Infra R&D Lab, said: “GiGAWire Alliance and HomeGrid Forum have been working closely together for some time now and this merger will allow further exciting developments to be made, as well as exploiting new areas such as Li-Fi, Connected Cars and Smart Grid; these are just some of the reasons why KT has been so keen to get more involved in the HomeGrid Forum.”
HomeGrid Forum offers multiple membership levels within the organization. To review the membership levels and associated benefits, please visit https://homegridforum.org/join/.
ENDS
About HomeGrid Forum
HomeGrid Forum (HGF) is an industry alliance that brings together the world’s best in technology innovators, silicon vendors, system manufacturers, and service providers to promote G.hn, a globally recognized gigabit home networking technology based on ITU-T standards. G.hn is the most reliable and versatile wireless home network backbone available today. Our members promote the global adoption of G.hn, a single unified, multi-sourced networking technology – over coax, copper pairs, powerline, and plastic optical fiber. HomeGrid Forum provides G.hn silicon and system certification through a strict compliance and interoperability testing program. For more information on HomeGrid Forum, please visit our website at www.homegridforum.org.
Media contact
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