Industry News

Home networks are starting to emerge as a major market for POF, driven by the need to network computers and audio/video devices in the home. Several different approaches exist, including 1394b, powerline, Carrier Ethernet, PnP(phone line), and wireless. No one system now dominates, but as home electronics become digital and the need for high speeds increases, 1394b and POF become an ideal network solution to interconnect clusters of home network appliances.

At OFC 2008, several companies exhibited Ethernet-over-POF home network backbones and device interconnection. One had developed a backbone POF home network with RF distribution in the room .

Over the past year, there has been a great deal of activity in Europe to introduce IPTV, and interest in POF to provide a link from the home gateway to the set-top box. European telcos in Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland are considering"do-it-yourself POF kits"to guarantee quality of service (QoS) for consumers. This could be a major entry for POF into the home. This edition of the POF into the home. This edition of the POF Market Study takes this potential opportunity into account in its new forecast for the home networking market.