G.hn

G.hn is the common name for a home network technology family of standards developed under the International Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Standardization sector (the ITU-T) and promoted by the HomeGrid Forum and several other organizations. The G.hn specifications define networking over power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables with data rates up to 1 Gbit/s.

ITU-T Recommendation (the ITU's term for standard) G.9960, which received approval on October 9, 2009, specified the physical layers and the architecture of G.hn. The Data Link Layer (Recommendation G.9961) was approved on June 11, 2010. The work was done in the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Study Group 15, Question 4. About 20 companies participated in the work, including telephone, communication equipment, and home networking technology companies.

Unified communication

G.hn is a specification for existing-wire home networking. It is a complementary counterpart to Wi-Fi. G.hn targets gigabit per second data rates and operation over three types of legacy home wires: telephone wiring, coaxial cables and power lines. A single G.hn semiconductor device is able to network over any of the supported home wire types. Some benefits of a multi-wire standard are lower equipment development costs and lower deployment costs for service providers (by allowing customer self-install).