STMicroelectronics and Arkados join up on HomePlug AV SoC

HomePlug AV has been around for what seems like eons, but regardless of how hard it tries, it never seems to really take hold in the market place. That being said, two big names in the industry are teaming up to give it yet another push, as STMicroelectronics and Arkados join hands to "develop and manufacture a 200Mbit-per-second HomePlug AV wideband powerline modem System-on-Chip (SoC)." If all goes to plan, it'll become the world's first HomePlug AV SoC, and it's being designed to "power applications ranging from simple Ethernet-to-powerline bridges to full-featured products as wide ranging as HDTV distribution, digital set-top boxes, IPTV, whole-house audio, networked digital picture frames, surveillance systems, etc." We'll see if anyone notices when it ships in mid-2009.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 2nd 2008 2:10PM]

I tried 200Mbps powerline products two years ago and they didn't live up to the hype. It even states in the user manual of the powerline products that the maximum throughput is 76Mbps using FTP. In my house, two outlets in the same room got me 30Mbps, two outlets in adjacent rooms was 10Mbps, and on a different floor 20 feet away it was 1Mbps. Then when a fan in the house was turned on all transmissions collapsed. Overall a horrible system with weak promises. In 99.9% of instances wireless is better. I have 802.11g in my house and I get 20Mbps throughput from one side to the other.

Powerline: Too expensive and too hyped