What is G.hn?

Status

Recommendation G.9960 was granted approval at the October 2009 Study Group 15 plenary meeting.

Recommendation G.9961 received approval on June 11, 2010. During that meeting, concerns about regulatory conformance were raised and an amendment to the G.hn standard was proposed that eliminated the passband (100 MHz to 200 MHz) and reduced the baseband operational spectrum (from 100 MHz to 80 MHz). Other changes included in the amendment included a reduction of transmit power to meet regulatory complaints raised at the meeting. In June 2011, during a joint Forum held by ITU-T, ITU-R and other organizations, it was recognized that “ITU-T G.hn was considered to have electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and mitigation techniques that go well beyond those considered essential for protecting radio services”, and that “Non-ITU compliant home network equipment may cause problems”.

In October 2010, Sigma Designs announced the first G.hn-compliant chipset, called CG5110. In January 2011, Lantiq introduced a family of G.hn-compliant chips, called HNX176 and HNX156.

In June 2011, four silicon vendors (Lantiq, Marvell Semiconductor, Metanoia and Sigma Designs) announced their participation in an open interoperability plugfest in Geneva, hosted by Homegrid Forum, Broadband Forum and ITU.

The HomeGrid Forum showcased the world’s first live public demonstration of G.hn interoperability at CES, January 10–13, 2012. HomeGrid Forum members Lantiq, Marvell, Metanoia, and Sigma Designs joined together to highlight real-world G.hn capabilities.

In January 2012, Tangotec Ltd. announced that it will have a fully compliant ITU-T G.hn chipset family available in 2012. Tangotec demonstrated G.hn capabilities over all three media at CES 2012.

In December 2012, Marvell and HomeGrid Forum announced that Marvell’s G.hn silicon had passed all compliance tests and was now the first compliance certified G.hn silicon. To be first certified G.hn silicon only interop testing remains.