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| EMagazine Volume 5 Issue 4 Aug / Sep 2000 |
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The networked home -- and the residential gateway as its central connectivity link -- is about an exciting new convergence of technologies. For most of us though, the focus is on discovering a new world of convenience, cost savings, and peace of mind in our daily lives.
What is a residential gateway?
The residential gateway is an intelligent networking device that provides connectivity between internal home networks and external Internet access networks. It allows the delivery of a nearly endless array of residential services, existing ones and those yet to be developed.
Most industry experts define a residential gateway as one that enables two-way access between multiple home networks and the Internet, utilizing existing access networks such as DSL, cable, or regular phone lines. Advanced residential gateways also allow for different home devices -- say the security system and the lighting or entertainment systems -- to interact with one another. They allow access to these multiple networks, devices and services with a single point of connection, from your PC, mobile phone or other handheld device.
What can a residential gateway do for me?
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Graphical interfaces turned the computer experience of millions of people into something easy and intuitive. In the same way, the intelligent residential gateway turns the data from devices such as refrigerators, light switches, thermostats, and security sensors into useful information that you can easily understand and act on remotely.
And intelligence goes both ways. Devices can access information from the Internet just as your computer now downloads software upgrades. Your microwave might download recipes, product updates, or safety alerts. Your hot water heater might communicate with its manufacturer about impending failures, averting disaster and potentially making you eligible for lower home insurance rates.
Where can I get one?
The short answer is: through your energy/utility, telephone, or broadband/ cable service provider - and very soon. In some places it's already happening. In fact, Coactive Networks is rolling out half a million residential gateways to homes throughout Northern Europe - the first mass-market deployment in history. Deregulation across the telecommunication and energy industries, and the competition it implies, have spurred providers to plan new service offerings, and we're beginning to see the results.
As the early adopters among us have discovered, it's possible right now to go out and purchase - and with enough technical know-how put together - some pretty fantastic, home automation setups. With a combination of home automation hardware and software options you can set up a network of your own that uses multiple boxes to access various home appliances and systems.
What you can't get with the off-the-shelf and consumer-initiated approaches are affordability, "one-stop shopping" (in terms of having a single access point for all functions) and multiple-provider e-services. The bottom line is, these systems tend to be either quite cumbersome, very expensive, or both.
Because they do it on a large scale, service providers can install residential gateways at affordable price points. They can also design and offer multiple-provider e-services that you couldn't arrange on your own, such as healthcare monitoring programs or entertainment programming discounts.
The Residential Gateway in the future.
Ultimately the residential gateway will eliminate the need for a whole variety of electronic black-box type gadgets, each of which may now support and enable different types of services or entertainment. It will do away with the need for separate DBS programming receiver boxes, separate modems for each computer, individual servers built into high-end appliances, and other single-function gateway devices which are currently earning lots of attention based on their consumer revenue potential.
Your telephone company probably makes routine offers of ancillary services such as call-waiting, caller identification, or digital subscriber lines (DSL). From your utility company you may get energy saving tips and appliance-efficiency rebate offers. Soon, households around the country will receive flyers and bill inserts announcing residential-gateway-enabled e-services. In most cases the residential gateway will be installed at no charge, and each customer will be able to select specific e-services for a nominal monthly fee.
The residential gateway, by creating a flexible, cost-effective platform for home security, home medical care, appliance monitoring, energy management, home automation, and other e-services, will drive the advent of the technologically smart home, not just for the affluent, but for millions of families around the world.
David Gaw: President and co-founder of Coactive Networks, David Gaw has been at the forefront of emerging technologies in intelligent systems development for over a decade. Since the company's inception in 1993, Gaw has led a stellar technical team in pioneering break-through synergies between networking, broadband connections and mobile Internet access. With the Coactive Connector® product series and patent-pending IOConnect Architecture™, they have quickly become the leader in commercial and residential gateways, connecting networks to the real world.
Gaw currently serves on the LonMark board of directors and is an active member of OSGi. As an industry expert, he also presents and participates at key events.
