HomeRF

The Home Radio Frequency Working Group was a group of more than 100 companies which developed a specification (Shared Wireless Access Protocol-SWAP) for home devices to share data. It disbanded in January 2003.

HomeRF is another personal area networks (PANs) standard competed with Bluetooth in its early days.

HomeRF – A wireless networking specification that uses FHSS (frequency hopping spread spectrum) in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and can achieve a maximum of 10 Mbit/s throughput and its nodes can travel within a 50 meter range of an access point while remaining connected to the PAN.

HomeRF allows both traditional telephone signals and data signals to be exchanged over the same wireless network. Therefore, in HomeRF, cordless telephones and laptops, for example, can share the same bandwidth in the same home of office.

HomeRF is a wireless networking specification developed by the HomeRF Working Group, a consortium of mobile wireless companies that includes Siemens and Motorola.

However, its working group was disbanded in January 2003 after 802.11b networks became accessible to home users and Microsoft began including support for Bluetooth in its Windows operating systems. It is becoming obsolete, and no group is developing the standard further.

(Tamara Dean. Network+ Guide to Networks. Third Edition.)

Currently, there are several standards and working groups focused on wireless networking technology (radio frequency [RF]). These include the IEEE 802.11, HomeRF, Bluetooth, and standard wireless access protocol (SWAP).

HomeRF LANs currently are less expensive. A HomeRF PC card from Intel, for example, lists for $129, compared with a $190 Intel 802.11b PC card. But HomeRF LANs aren't as fast. Today's available HomeRF LANs support 1.6 Mbit/s, and 802.11b LANs support 11 Mbit/s. While 1.6 Mbit/s may be fast enough for a family of four, it is potentially restrictive for a growing corporate user base. (Note: Actual throughput on each is about 50% of these stated data rates.)

http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/wireless/2000/0925wire1.html

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