Taipei has become the first Asian venue to host a HomeGrid Forum G.hn plugfest. HomeGrid Forum is the organization that promotes the ITU-T’s G.hn family of technologies for faster, more reliable home networking over any wired connection in the home. This is the latest in a series of highly successful plugfest events, with the focus of this one being to pave the way for full product certification during 2012. The series began in May 2011, with the first full live demonstration of multi-vendor interoperability (over coax and powerline) being in January 2012 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Four silicon vendors: Lantiq, Marvell Semiconductor, Metanoia, and Sigma Designs took part. Using the experience gained both in the previous events, and the CES demonstrations, the objective of the Taipei plugfest was to provide validation of the G.hn compliance test plans.

The event was hosted by several local organizations including the Taiwan Institute for Information Industry (III) which is a non-Government Organization (NGO), and jointly sponsored by private enterprises Allion and CHT TL. The Industrial Development Bureau of the Taiwanese Government’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (which supports the information and communications technology industry in Taiwan) was also involved.
Dr. H. T. Ko, Director General of the Industry Development Augmentation Division of III said: “We are delighted that the HomeGrid Forum chose to come to Taiwan. The potential of this new technology in enabling the connected home is very exciting.”

Event supervision and testing was carried out by HomeGrid’s G.hn Test & Certification lab, the internationally renowned telecom testing house TRaC Global. The tests will validate compliance with the ITU-T’s G.hn home networking standards, which provide a platform for home networking over any wire. G.hn-enabled systems from PC manufacturers, appliance manufacturers, Service Provider OEMs, and consumer electronics companies will be deployed globally by service providers, while consumers will also be able to buy G.hn products through retail outlets.

“The Asian market is showing strong interest in G.hn as a powerful enabling technology for home networking,” commented Matt Theall, President of the HomeGrid Forum. “This event creates a greater awareness of the progress we have made toward full certification. The fact that III in Taiwan hosted this Plugfest is testament to the importance G.hn has throughout the Asian market. We greatly appreciate the support of III and others throughout Asia for G.hn. We wanted to show the G.hn community’s commitment to the region by holding this pre-certification event here. The Taiwan Plugfest is helping to finalize our testing collateral, and paves the way for full system testing and certification in 2012”.