Multimedia Home Networking Overview

The Challenge

The explosion of digital entertainment and multimedia content (from myriad sources such as Linear TV, Time shifted content, Internet content, etc.) and the increased number of available screens in the home (TV’s, Laptops, Portable TV’s, etc.) are driving demand for convenient home networking solutions. Both consumers and service providers are looking for a quick and simple solution that can deliver video content from any source to any room in the home.

More and more multimedia content is IP protocol wrapped (entertainment content delivered over Telco broadband networks, PC stored content, DVR stored content, etc.). Thus, the challenge is to install robust IP home networks to distribute high quality video while matching the quality of experience of today’s commercial broadcast TV. Naturally, these new networks should be easy to install, without having to deploy new wires within the home. Today’s data centric, best-effort computer home networks are certainly not up to the task.

Market Trends

Multi-room DVR and Video-on-Demand functionality have become key services to enhance user satisfaction and deliver a personalized viewing experience. The availability of HD content is expanding and quickly becoming a competitive differentiator among TV service providers. Subscribers want the freedom to enjoy HD video content from living room DVRs on any TV in the house. Thus, “anytime, anywhere” HD TV has become the de-facto service offering around the world. For consumers, the proliferation of computer-based multimedia content - both from the Internet and user generated - increases the need for robust, do-it-yourself home networks for entertainment distribution.

Home Networking Technologies

Very few homes today are equipped with Ethernet cabling for IP based home networking, while the cost and hassle associated with installing the new wires is often a non-starter. Coax cabling in many regions is limited, and even when present, rarely covers all spots in the house. Power line infrastructure - albeit ubiquitous - is extremely sensitive to interference from household appliances and lacks the portability required to connect devices such as laptops, VoIP phones, etc.

Celeno’s Solution

Wi-Fi home networking represents the Holy Grail for multimedia and entertainment content distribution in the house, allowing for fast, flexible and cost effective implementations. Wi-Fi holds the promise to meet today’s home wiring challenges provided that certain critical criteria are met: whole-home coverage, interference-resiliency and enough throughput to carry multiple HD streams while maintaining zero packet loss conditions.

Celeno’s innovative Wi-Fi silicon solutions power the next generation of wireless home networking equipment. These solutions enable consumers and service providers to quickly and easily deploy robust, whole-home wireless entertainment networks. Celeno’s CL1300 silicon was built from the ground up to optimize standard Wi-Fi for carrier-grade HD video streaming and presents many benefits to the end user, service provider and the OEMs.

Celeno’s silicon technology enables multiple product configurations and deployment architectures for fast time-to-market and optimized price performance. Celeno provides multiple reference designs, including a standalone Wireless Video Extender (VXT) “Dongle” or an integrated product configuration in which Celeno’s chip is embedded into residential gateways or set top boxes.