26 October, 2010 – Consumers need to understand, visualise, monitor, and control the energy being consumed in their home, and broadband service providers can help them do that, said Duncan Bees, Chief Technology and Business Officer of the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI).
Addressing some of the industry’s top-level executives during a session today, entitled “Prospects of optimizing household’s energy efficiency through broadband”, at this year’s Broadband World Forum in Paris, Mr. Bees discussed approaches that can be taken by Broadband Service Providers (BSPs), in conjunction with energy providers, to help bring consumers awareness and control over energy used in the home. Those efforts are the focus of HGI’s ‘Phase 3’ work in Energy Efficiency.
The announcement comes just weeks after the ‘Phase 1’ work, HGI-RD009-R3: Requirements for an energy efficient home gateway document, was published by HGI, which outlines the best practices available to minimise the power consumed by home gateways themselves.
Duncan commented: “Optimisation of the power consumed by the home gateway, an always-on device, is a cornerstone for further improvements in broadband energy efficiency. RD009 sets out best practices and requirements for each component of the Home Gateway (HG) and describes ways to transition modules to low-power states when not in use. Further, the HGI test event in November will test the actual energy efficiency of Home Gateways.
“HGI’s ‘Phase 2’ work extends progress beyond the HG to identify a framework for optimisation of power consumed in the home network, and among the devices connected to the home network. This is an ambitious project requiring collaboration among a number of industry partners and manufacturers. Considering the work in Phases 1, 2 and 3 together, HGI and its members are making a substantial contribution to energy efficiency in the home.”
Mr Bees’ address comes less than a month before the organisation holds its second annual test event to assess functionalities in both HG products and reference designs. The scope for this unique event, running from November 24 to December 3, will cover HG data handling performance, quality of service, and multi-session support. New for this year, the HG testing will also include software modularity and IPv6, as well as more complete wireless LAN, energy efficiency, and broadband connectivity tests.
Founded in 2004, HGI is the world’s leading member-led organisation devoted to translating broadband service providers’ service plans into published technology requirements for home enablers.
For further information, please visit
www.homegatewayinitiative.org or email
[email protected].
