HANs

HANs

Smart devices need channels over which to communicate, so the more intelligent appliances and accessories you have in the home, the greater the likelihood that they need a network a HAN over which to exchange information in order to realize value. The emergence of intelligent appliances also opens up an entirely new level of market involvement. It creates a new outlet for knowledge, content, and information services that can be offered by online experts and service providers. The appliance acts as a vehicle for stimulating interest in activities that benefit from using the appliance. In essence, the appliance becomes a part of a collaborative system that satisfies a much higher human need. Basically, a smart device needs a reason to exist, and that reason is a continually developing set of applications and services with which to better your life. So it's important to look beyond the last mile, at what technologies apply in HANs and why.

Pervasive Computing

As we distribute intelligence across a wider range of devices, we are experiencing pervasive computing or ubiquitous computing. Much of this pervasive computing will occur in smart homes, but much of it will occur elsewhere, too devices being pioneered include smart clothing and smart tracking devices.

As we miniaturize intelligence, we can place it on mobile platforms, but today we still have to hold and manipulate small keys or a stylus on the device. Wouldn't it make much more sense to simply embed the computing and communications tool set into the clothing or into accessories like your jewelry or your belt or your glasses? Work is going on in all these areas right now, as well as in areas such as smart food, smart wrappers, smart medical needles, and smart cars.

Another fascinating idea is smart tattoos, which are smart dermal implants. Instead of having to inject insulin, a diabetic could get a tattoo every so often that contains insulin within it. A medical office can monitor the tattoo remotely, and if it sees that the person's insulin level is dropping, it can send a little message over the network that causes the correct amount of insulin to be dispensed. A backpack traveler who's going on a year-long mission of viewing the world could get a smart tattoo that contains vaccines that can be administered as she gets to certain countries.

Of course, the new developments make yet more new developments necessary. Many cars today are equipped to access the Internet through built-in panels. To help people drive safely while Web surfing in their vehicles, we need smart highways: A series of scanners and sensors are placed along roadways to guide vehicles, and wireless capabilities, radar built into the vehicles, allows distances to be calculated and therefore collisions to be predicted and cars to automatically brake when needed.

Devices are getting smaller and more powerful all the time, and they're getting physically closer to our bodies, as well. For example, if I tell you we have a smart telephone available, you would naturally think that it should know how to route the call based on the number dialed over what will be the most cost-effective carrier. But a really smart telephone would be able to tap into your brain waves. It would be able to detect that you're in beta wave form, which implies heavy thought process, and as a result, it should divert the call to a messaging system because if it rang, it would disrupt you at doing something that seems to be more important at the moment. MIT labs is working on another level of smart-affective computing, giving the computer the capability to sense and understand your state of mind. One MIT project involves an electromyogram. With it, when you're clenching your jaw, for instance, your cheek turns a bright red, and that alerts the computer to the fact that there's a problem occurring. Your friendly machine can now stop and work with you to resolve the frustration.

If we embed intelligence into our clothing and accessories, and even use it on our bodies, we create yet another frontier for networking: the personal area network (PAN), which surrounds an individual and provides networking between badge-based computers and other input/output devices in the form of accessories. These PANs are already being created in labs.

Other emerging areas in the Age of Intelligence are tagging human beings (for example, children, diplomats who are at risk of being kidnapped), artificial intelligence, and artificial life. Humans' weakest point is our physiology. No matter how smart or wealthy a person is, a knife wound or a bullet in a strategic spot can kill him. So if we're going to explore the frontiers that the universe presents us with, one of our accomplishments will need to be breaking the light barrier, and a carbon-based being will not be able to accomplish that; therefore, we're looking at building a new form of intelligence that will be the electronic and photonic equivalent of today's humans. Recently, we've seen the introduction of single-purpose robots that can mow a lawn or vacuum a home. Within 10 years, we will begin to see multifunctional robots that will become assistants in our everyday life.

I could spend many more pages talking about the myriad new areas of research and discovery. Suffice it to say, though, that we're somewhere near the beginning of a great journey, and we're really only starting to see the possibilities and what we need to do to make those possibilities a reality.

The HAN Market, Applications, and Elements

Broadband deployments are accelerating. As of the middle of 2001, something on the order of 10 million to 12 million broadband developments had been implemented worldwide. In the next several years, the number of broadband deployments is expected to reach the 40 million mark. Traditionally these broadband deployments have focused on core networks and on the last mile, the local loop. But the last mile is really only half of the broadband solution. Simplicity and user-friendliness are driving rapid penetration of intelligence into all the various home elements. The HAN which is the last 328 feet (100 meters) will complete the broadband access solution. Therefore, we can expect to see the global market for home networking equipment rise substantially. Experts say that the home data and entertainment networking market, as well as the connectivity services market, will be worth billions of dollars. Connectivity products will offer additional voice management, home monitoring, and new entertainment services. The service provider will begin to move its area of domain into the home, offering broadband access along with home area networking technology, smart appliances, and bundled applications.

We will be developing quite a complex HAN infrastructure, which might include the components shown in Figure 15.1. The product range includes transceivers or communications interfaces, network interface cards for the various devices participating on the network, gateways, servers, sensors, controllers, and some form of an operating system. A variety of broadband services including DSL, hybrid arrangements, fiber, and wireless will be possible. Those services will terminate on the home network gateway. From that network gateway you will connect into some form of a communications hub, a residential gateway device that can split the signals and deliver them to the proper receiver. From this residential gateway you'll have several different networks. You'll have the automation and control network on which reside the various sensors that help automate the home to make your life easier and happier. Through that gateway you'll also have access to mobility networks wireless networks that allow you to roam within the range of your home and the outdoor area surrounding it. You'll have the very high-speed computer and entertainment networks that may be required for purposes of professional or leisure activities.

Figure 15.1. Home networking elements

Computer interconnection is a major application of HANs. It allows access to the Internet, as well as the connection and communication of multiple PCs with various peripherals and communications and entertainment devices. This computer connection requires very high-speed networks. Generally, homes with two or more computers are considered to be prime candidates for this type of HAN, and in the United States there are about 17 million such homes. Industry analysts project that HANs for communications and entertainment will find their way into more than 6 million U.S. households by 2003. So controlling the home including management of lights, appliances, climate control systems, and surveillance cameras will be a huge market for HANs.

Types of HANs

Let's take a look at the technologies that can be applied in HANs. Again, remember that the home network is likely to become a layered network, just like the enterprise network, where there's a need for backbone networks, mobility networks, control networks, and wired networks, each of which is best served by one or another alternative. The success of HANs depends on standard products that are operable with a variety of physical infrastructures, so we'll see the use of voice-grade telephony wiring, electric powerlines, wireless, and fiber, among other techniques. By far, currently, the greatest penetration is of the phonelines approach, followed by wireless, and then by the powerlines approach. We expect to see growth in the wireless and powerlines areas in the very near future.

HANs over Phone Lines

Phone lines can be used in HANs, and a big interest group here is the Home Phone Networking Alliance (HomePNA), described in Chapter 13, "Broadband Access Solutions," which continues to grow the home networking market and whose membership is continually expanding. Today, HomePNA consists of more than 150 companies, 25% of which are outside the United States. HomePNA has specified products that have up to 10Mbps capacity. According to the HomePNA, home area networking is very important for the customer because it enables broadband Internet distribution, shared broadband access via a multitude of devices in the home, low-cost IP telephony, and streaming audio throughout the house. HomePNA (www.homepna.com) expects that by 2003, killer applications will include video distribution, e-commerce that's integrated via television and the Internet, and next-generation peer-to-peer applications.

Another standards group is involved with home networking over phone lines: The ITU's Question 4/Study Group 15 is working on the standard G.pnt for phone network transceivers.

The advantages associated with the phone-line approach include the fact that current products can use phone lines to interconnect PCs and peripherals for shared Internet access. A disadvantage is that because phone jacks do not offer sufficient network access points to support pervasive computing within the home, the phone-line approach cannot serve as a long-term backbone solution. Figure 15.2 shows an example of a HAN over phone lines.

Figure 15.2. A HAN over phone lines

HANs over Powerlines

Numerous standards address home networking over powerlines (see Chapter 13). X10 Ltd.'s standard X10 controls appliances over electric powerlines in the home and publishes the specifications of transmitting devices. Manufacturers of home appliances can design and embed X10 transmitters in them, and the receiving and control devices are made by X10 itself.

Another standard involves the use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and several companies are pursuing this approach. CEBus, based on Electronic Industries Association (EIA) 600, also opens the home networking standard to multiple alternatives, including power lines. And the International Power Line Communications Forum (IPCF), based in the United Kingdom, is working to make powerline communications products interoperable.

The main advantage of the powerline approach is that it's an ideal architecture for data networks because the majority of devices must already connect to a power source in order to operate in the first place. The main disadvantage is that your flexibility is dependent on the availability and placement of those power sources. Figure 15.3 shows an example of a powerline HAN.

Figure 15.3. A powerline HAN

Wireless HANs

A multitude of standards address wireless HANs:

         IEEE 802.11 originally supported 1Mbps to 2Mbps, in the 2.4GHz range. The IEEE has since published two supplements to this 802.11 standard: 802.11a (40Mbps in the 5.8GHz band) and 802.11b (11Mbps in the 2.4GHz band).

         The HomeRF Working Group uses the Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) and frequency hopping. The SWAP system can operate either as an ad hoc network or as a managed network under the control of a connection point.

         The Bluetooth Consortium deals with networks that operate over very short ranges (about 100 feet, or 30 meters), but an increasing number of devices are being created to work in these ranges; approximately 2,500 manufacturers have signed up to incorporate Bluetooth in their products, so this is likely to be a very important step in the growth of wireless.

         The Wireless LAN Interoperability Forum promotes OpenAir, which also makes use of frequency hopping.

         The European Telecommunications Standards Institute has broadband radio access networks (BRANs), which follows the HIPERLAN standard and uses a technique called Gaussian frequency shift key (GFSK) as its access technique.

         Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) uses GFSK.

         ShareWave (that is, Proxim) is also working on wireless standards.

There are numerous HAN standards, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Clearly, there can be lots of interoperability issues involved here. (Chapter 14, "Wireless Communications," describes wireless communication, including standards, in more detail.) Figure 15.4 shows an example of a wireless HAN.

Figure 15.4. A wireless HAN

The main advantage of wireless is that you have an untethered solution for devices that need mobility in communications. I adore my wireless LAN, specifically for that reason: I can take my work where I want it, within my grounds, and not worry about being near a phone jack or even a power connection.

The disadvantage of wireless HANs is that, generally, wireless has limited bandwidth. Wireless also has unresolved security issues, network infringement issues, interference from other wireless sources, and comparatively high costs. (These issues are discussed in Chapter 13.)

Control Networks

Control networks are typically low-speed powerline networks. The most widely used technologies for home automation and control purposes are based on three standards:

         Echelon Corporation's LonWorks LonWorks is an open standard under EIA 709. More than 4,000 developers worldwide are working on hardware, software, and integrated systems for the LonWorks platform. The protocol is now embedded in silicon neuron chips from Cypress Semiconductor, Toshiba America, and other companies. Dozens of manufacturers are incorporating these chips into their modules for controlling household electrical equipment.

         X10 As mentioned earlier in the chapter, X10 is a communications protocol for remote control of electrical devices and communications (off, on, and dim functions) over standard household AC powerline wiring. X10 publishes the specs, manufacturers can embed the transmitters into their appliances, and X10 manufactures and sells the receiving and control devices.

         CEBus CEBus, as discussed earlier in the chapter, is based on EIA 600 and is an open standard that specifies the technology and the parameters for communication by using powerlines, Category 5 twisted-pair, coax, wireless, and infrared.

Advantages of control networks include the fact that there are existing product solutions and well-established industry standards. Control networks also have relatively low cost and simple implementation. The disadvantage is that these networks are not designed to support real-time, high-bandwidth, or mobility requirements, so the value proposition of stand-alone applications does not offer the right incentives for the mainstream market to consume the products.

Wired Networks

Wired networks include universal serial bus (USB), Category 5 or 10BaseT wiring, and the IEEE's 1394 Firewire. Benefits are that wired network standards are reliable and robust. The drawbacks of wired networks are that penetrating the mass market requires a "no new wires" technology. These solutions, therefore, will primarily extend only to new homes that are making use of structured wiring and perhaps to the technophile hobbyist and professional home user market.

HAN Gateways and Servers

A HAN needs a system for identifying data and routing it to its destination, and this implies the need for gateways and servers. Coactive Network supplies a home telemetry gateway. It supports LonWorks currently, and future releases will also support X10 and connect to multiple media types, including both powerline and wireless. Rebel.com provides a product called NetWinder, which is a Linux-based server.

Planning for the Future

When considering HANs, you must plan for the future. You need to plan and install an infrastructure that's designed to address today's needs, and you also need to understand that tomorrow you'll need to support much more advanced applications and a greater range of devices. It's a good idea to stay away from permanent equipment that will soon become obsolete. You should try not to choose products that limit your ability to change or to upgrade in the future, and you should try to ensure that the infrastructure stays invisible.

You should consider a number of other points going forward, as more and more intelligence surrounds you and becomes self-aware in an attempt to serve you even better:

         Who's in control in the smart house?

         Does the house's behavior act consistently with the image you would like to project?

         Does the house now have a personality of its own?

         What happens when the power goes off? More importantly, what happens when the house crashes? Do you get locked in forever?

Of course, these and many other issues will be resolved in time. Security will be quite important to all this, and while I won't claim that security solutions abound, there has been significant progress in the areas of encryption, authentication, and key exchange. There is much additional development being done in this area, including the use of biometrics. We are now in the early stages with HANs.

For more learning resources, quizzes, and discussion forums on concepts related to this chapter, see www.telecomessentials.com/learningcenter.