HOMES and businesses will soon enjoy high-speed data through electricity powerlines. TM Research and Development Sdn Bhd (TMRND) and telecommunications network service provider Velchip are collaborating to develop a suite of broadband powerline products that leverage on the latter’s 224-megabit-per-second (Mbps) BPL technology.

The technology is capable of high density and superior quality triple play services.

Both TMRND and Velchip intend to leverage on this technology to take it to the next level. Velchip intends to deliver the 224Mbps homeplug adapter as a joint offering.

The palm-sized powerline modem only requires users to plug it into any power outlet wall socket and connect it to a computer with an Ethernet/local area network (LAN) cable, or to a wireless access point or router. The idea is to gear up the home in this fashion for triple play (to have voice, data and video in one connection).

“In this day and age, broadband has become the key services channel for both fixed and wireless networks. TMRND is confident that in working with Velchip, we can produce BPL products that create the capacity for network operators to deliver new bandwidth-hungry applications like video-conferencing, streaming audio and video, interactive games and real-time voice services, bringing triple play to reality. There are over six million homes in Malaysia that can benefit from this service,” said TMRND‘s chief executive officer Dr Shahruddin Muslimin at the memorandum of

understanding (MoU) signing recently.

With the signing, Velchip also acquired rights to manufacture, market and distribute BPL developed products under the terms of the technology licensing agreement. Besides Malaysia, there are expansion plans for China, India and the Middle East.

Velchip’s chief executive officer Suhaimi Abdul Rahman believes that the partnership will leverage each other’s strengths to create new benchmarks for products in terms of ease-of-use, functionality, reliability and affordability to meet today’s market demands. The MoU will last five years and automatically be renewed on mutual agreement.

Suhaimi added that Velchip has developed the exclusive BPL platform in 1998 and utilised it to integrate wide area network and LAN setups.

Besides joint research and development in home networking technologies, the collaboration will entail shared and transferred expertise through training and industrial attachment.