
Electronics makers push for home networking standard - naish
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/04/30/tech-homegrid-forum.html?ref=rss
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brk
These companies are very short-sighted. There is already a networking
standard, ethernet.

"Home networking" standards have come and gone (Remember HPNA anyone? Or the
early Proxim wireless gear and proposed standard?). The problem is that people
inevitably want to connect things like laptops and such to their home
networks, devices which already have wired and/or wireless ethernet
capabilities.

What they _really_ need to develop is a protocol and QoS for A/V equipment to
intercommunicate. Good luck trying to get 10,000 companies to all agree on,
and consistently implement, any sort of ubiquitous communications protocol.

These companies simply can't help themselves from breaking "standards" in
situations like this. There would be an agreed-upon method to have your A/V
receiver talk to your DVD player and display, for example. Except if you had
all Sony gear, then there would be an "enhanced" mode that added some trivial
feature. Then Panasonic would copy the concept, but with their own "enhanced
mode". Then Denon would steal Sony's method and Kenwood would steal
Panasonics, and soon the whole thing becomes fractured and broken.

There is a reason that most A/V gear still connects with simple cables and
minimal interoperability... I don't see this changing anytime soon.

