14 DAY TRIAL // Although the IEEE 1901 powerline standard has not even been publicized, devolo is quick to announce they plan to release a new product series that will take advantage of the 500Mb/s transfer speeds offered by this new specification, creating faster than ever before powerline adapters.
Although work on the IEEE 1901 standard started all the way back in 2007, this new powerline specification was approved just a few months ago, on September 30, 2011, devolo being one of the companies that were behind its development.
In order to deliver its impressive transfer speed of 500Mb/s, the new standard uses technologies that were developed for wireless networks, such as MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output), future revisions promising to reach even greater transfer speeds of up to 1Gbps.
In the short time since it was ratified by the IEEE, the standard managed to gain market acceptance as the HomePlug Alliance has included the IEEE 1901 specifications in their AV2 standard that should be able to reach speeds as high as 600 Mbit/s.
"IEEE 1901 is a big, important step for the powerline market," remarks Heiko Harbers, CEO of devolo AG. He adds, "Only uniform standards can open markets and let them grow. They create trust among dealers and consumers and are the basis for successful products.”
“devolo has not only actively collaborated on the IEEE 1901 standard, but also made sure that this standard is backwards compatible with the present devolo products of the dLAN 200 AV series," concluded the company's rep.
As an added bonus, existing devolo products will be able to work together with the powerline adapters built using this new standard.
Although devolo hasn't provided us with any timelines regarding their IEEE 1901 product launches, these units should start appearing to the market sometime in the middle of 2011 as the dLAN 500 range.