CEA Forms R-7 Committees To Establish Standards For Home Networking
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Technology and Standards Department has reorganized its standards setting committees to reflect the changing home networking industry. The R-7 Home Networking Committee, created in May 1999, now will oversee and coordinate the work of CEA's integrated home systems and home automation standards committees, previously working under specific product categories. R-7 unifies CEA's efforts to develop home networking standards that facilitate communication among the appliances, home systems, entertainment products and information devices in a home. ""Communication between the appliances, systems and consumer electronics devices in the home will extend the benefits of digital technology throughout consumer's homes,"" said CEA President and CEO, Gary Shapiro. ""This reorganization illustrates CEA's commitment to being a responsive engineering organization and reflects consumer demand for connected products."" The charter of R-7 is to provide coordination for, and encourage cooperation among, all EIA and CEA home network standardization efforts as well as provide a forum for other home network standards formulating bodies interested in working with EIA and CEA. The primary goal is to ensure that current and future home networks can coexist within a home and share information through the use of industry standard interfaces. Bill Rose, Leviton Vice President of Electronic Engineering and R-7 Chairman explains, ""R-7 is working toward an integrated home where the consumer can buy different products and have them communicate with each other by standardizing the interfaces and data protocols for signaling between different products."" Much of the focus on home networking standards came directly from CEA members and other home networking industry leaders by way of CEA's Discovery Groups, a series of industry-unifying discussion forums that explore the regulatory challenges, technological issues and the need for standards in a variety of product areas. Spearheaded by CEA's Technology and Standards department, each Discovery Group session explores the need for standards in a given product area and is open to anyone with an interest in the subject covered in the particular group. The first Discovery Group met in Washington, D.C. last May 1999 to discuss home networking standards. ""The objective of the home data networking Discovery Group meeting was to bring together a representative sample of industry stakeholders and provide a forum to discuss the need for standards,"" Ralph Justus, CEA Vice President of Technology and Standards recounted. ""The consensus among participants in the home data networking Discovery Group was that R-7 should work toward standardizing boundaries between the different home networking systems."" R-7.1, formerly known as HCS-1, is working on the EIA-709 series of standards. Chaired by Peter Mehring of Echelon, R-7.1 is working on a specification on extended addresses and a standardized set of network plug in tools. Participants in the February R-7.1 meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Florida began discussion on network plug in tools and formed a working group dedicated to these plug ins. Proposals are being submitted to this group for consideration. R-7.2 is the CEBus subcommittee. Chaired by Bernardino Camba of Domosys, this group is responsible for the CEBus standards series (EIA-600 series) as well as CEBus conformance series (EIA-633 series). All work on the EIA-600 and EIA-633 series has been completed. The subcommittee now is working on a specification that puts common application language (CAL) on top of XML. R-7.2 plans to complete this work by March 2000. R-7.3 Data Networks Subcommittee was created by R-7 in January 2000 and is chaired by Phil Robinson of 3Com. R-7 held two data channel Discovery Group meetings in October and December 1999. The group recommended that R-7 create a new subcommittee to work on creating one standard for powerline data networking. Numerous proponents have come forward to participate in the subcommittee's work. R-7.4 is the new joint VESA/CEA subcommittee created to work on version two of the VESA Home Network specification. The first version of this specification is being finalized by VESA. R-7 created this group in January 2000 and is chaired by Joel DiGirolamo. Future R-7 activities will include standardization of the home entertainment cluster. About The CEA The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is a sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), the 76-year-old Arlington, Virginia-based trade organization representing all facets of electronics manufacturing and connecting the industries that define the digital age. CEA represents more than 600 U.S. companies involved in the development, manufacturing and distribution of audio, video, mobile electronics, communications, information technology, multimedia and accessory products, as well as related services, that are sold through consumer channels. Combined, these companies account for more than $60 billion in annual sales. CEA also sponsors and manages the International CES - Your Source for Workstyle and Lifestyle Technology. All profits from CES are reinvested into industry services, including technical training and education, industry promotion, engineering standards development, market research and legislative advocacy. Source: CEA (Consumer Electronics Association)