The latest research from In-Stat reveals that shipments of HomePlug, HomePNA and MoCA networking nodes surpassed 40 million units last year as the need for higher-bandwidth home networking grew with increasing consumer adoption of tablets, set-top boxes, HDTVs, smartphones and Web-enabled media players, according to new research from In-Stat.
The research, part of the “HomePlug, MoCA, HomePNA, and G.hn: And the Winner Is…” report, points out that while WiFi networks are still the most dominant form of home networks, the demand for more bandwidth-consuming applications is causing service providers to turn to wired networking solutions that can deliver higher speeds with more reliability than wireless 802.11x standards can.
“Wiring a home with Ethernet is costly and often requires service providers to send out technicians to drill through walls and pull Cat 5 cabling,” said In-Stat analyst Vahid Dejwakh.
An easier, less expensive alternative is to rely on existing wiring inside the home, such as power lines, coax and phone lines.
“Not only is there competition over the type of wire to deliver the network, there are also different standards within each wire type that are not always interoperable,” Dejwakh said. These standards include HomePlug, MoCA and HomePNA.
Recent In-Stat research revealed that HomePlug shipped the highest number of nodes in 2010; MoCA experienced the greatest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent from 2007 to 2010; and China is expected to surpass the United States in 2011 as the country with the most home networks.