What the Internet boom was to the 90s, home network adoption, fueled by an evolving market, promises to be to the first decade of the 21st century. Drivers for this growth include new voice and television competition between cable MSOs and traditional telephone companies combined with home users ready to embrace the advantages of triple play services (video, voice and data) delivered in the home over coax cables or phone wires. Propelled by forces such as these, consider the rapidly increasing demand for home networking. Projections suggest that by 2010 "homes around the world are expected to have installed 700 million connected home devices that will allow them to share data and media across a home network," according to Strategy Analytics.¹

Despite this growing demand for home networking services, not every home in the U.S. or around the globe has coax cables or phone wires capable of supporting highquality video, voice and data. While newer homes usually have sufficient wiring in place to deliver high-performance triple play services, some older homes may not. As a result, major telecommunication (telcos) service providers involved with installing these services look to industry leaders such as Sunrise Telecom to provide network testing solutions such as the Home Test Toolkit (HTT) test set to facilitate the deployment of next-generation triple play services.

Today service providers can send technicians into homes where they can use the HTT test set to provide automatic "go-no-go" test routines for VDSL, RF signal level, Ethernet, 802.11x wireless LAN, plain old telephone service (POTS), and HomePNA home network as well as provide in-house wiring identification and testing, and copper-loop fault identification. HomePNA network testing is particularly important as it is used to distribute IPTV and VoIP in the home over both existing coaxial cable and phone wires. Used in this application, HomePNA’s appeal of using existing wires creates a seamless, easy-to-use home network for the average consumer — a network that "disappears" into the home wiring, requiring no configuration or maintenance by the consumer, providing easy installation and supporting remote management.

Preparing for the IPTV Revolution

The HomePNA Alliance plays a significant role in helping Sunrise Telecom build successful relationships with service providers to ensure timely delivery of services such as IPTV, which industry analysts predict will be the next boom in home entertainment options. Analysts believe that by 2010 IPTV will become part of an entertainment mix likely to boost the subscriber service, equipment and hardware and software markets.

In a recent Accenture and Economist Intelligence Unit survey, "more than half of communications industry executives believe that IPTV can generate significant revenue within the first three years of service... When asked to identify reasons for pursuing the IPTV market, the greatest number of respondents (42 percent) cited new revenue streams, followed by acquiring new customers (28 percent) and increasing sale of broadband access connections (21 percent)."² Customer satisfaction is key to high volume deployments of IPTV as a featured triple play service offering, and a robust home network capable of delivering IPTV glitch-free to the television set-top boxes is critical.

Sunrise Telecom’s HTT plays a significant role in ensuring every home’s wiring is ready for IPTV. "The network needs to be acceptable for IPTV," said Yumi Kato, product marketing manager for the Telecom Products Division. "Service providers need to verify that the inside wiring of the customer’s home is capable of delivering IPTV over the network. Service provider technicians use our HTT test equipment to ensure that the quality of the in-home wiring is not compromised."

HTT provides Sunrise Telecom’s telco customers with a test tool that integrates a range of test functions needed for inhome testing, and allows technicians to test key interfaces and signals at the customer location during installation. The technician sits at a demarcation point of the network and hooks up the HTT. He then goes to the various rooms and plugs cable identification devices into the network outlets (coax or phone wire wall jacks). The cable identification devices are used to identify the locations of the cables wired throughout the house back to the small HTT test set. The onscreen results provide information about which cable goes into room one, which cable goes into room two, and so on. The technician runs a signal loss test to confirm the quality of the cables inside of the home to identify if the wiring can sustain a high-quality home network.

"This information tells the service provider important information such as whether or not there is electrical loss that could be caused by poor cabling or modifications made between the demarcation point and the outlet," said Gerhard Beenen, president and general manager of the Sunrise Telecom's Telecom Products Group. "If the loss is too high then the service won't work correctly. The HTT provides signal quality data so that service providers can work with their customers to make the correct decisions about their home networking solutions."

Building Better Relationships for Success

Sunrise Telecom leverages successful relationships through HomePNA's products and services that use HomePNA's internationally recognized standard to provide interoperability for the home network. Thus, service providers have access to a wider range of vendors while reducing the likelihood of purchasing incompatible equipment that might deter them from adopting a new technology.

Sunrise Telecom also enjoys open access and exchange of ideas among the members of HomePNA. Sunrise Telecom receives invaluable news and updates from HomePNA to stay informed and responsive to the needs of the industry. "As HomePNA persuades more and more service providers that the HomePNA international standard is the best way to deliver in-home services, it helps Sunrise Telecom be more successful," said Beenen.