Although the merger activities may delay products, the two groups working together will help product development and adoption of WiGig technology. This will make it easier for product manufacturers to use both standard Wi-Fi and WiGig in devices and make it simple for consumer to understand the different wireless capabilities since WiGig is very different.

The technology is meant for fast transfers between devices close to each other or in the same room by using 60 GHz spectrum. Expect to see wireless computer docks, easier ways to stream content from a mobile device to a large screen and other similar use cases where WiGig can replace today’s data transfer cables.

WiGig started as a 2009 initiative with bold plans to deliver products as early as 2010, but that date came and went a while ago. And recently, the WiFi Alliance has spent much effort on the new 802.11ac standard for Wi-Fi, which uses wider channels and multiple data streams to boost wireless speeds and range well beyond 802.11n products. But this market is just getting started, so 802.11ad product certifications that include WiGig functionality, originally expected for 2013, are looking like a 2014 event at this point.

According to a video interview with Dr Ali Sadri, WiGig Alliance Chair,  “Based on our existing plan we should have certification in place later this year so there’s a little slip of the programme, maybe even beginning of ‘14.”

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Privately held Belkin said that after the acquisition, which it expects to close in March, it will have 30 percent of the U.S. retail home and small business networking market. Furthermore, Belkin said it would continue to support all Cisco-made Linksys products and maintain the Linksys brand, just as Cisco chose to do last decade. Belkin hopes to integrate the Linksys line with its home networking portfolio.

“Linksys pioneered wireless connectivity capability around the globe, and has a strong brand renowned for its premium market position, the strength of its installed base and its proven dependability. Linksys users benefit from peace of mind in their home networking environment,” Belkin CEO Chet Pipkin said in a statement. “At Belkin we have developed great insight into consumer needs, and the experiences, solutions and products we bring to the market, including our WeMo home automation platform, will help us to grow Linksys’ market presence.”

Furthermore, when the companies are no longer competing head to head, they’ll be free to partner. Belkin and Cisco said they would form strategic partnerships in “retail distribution, strategic marketing and products for the service provider market.” They didn’t give many details, but it sounds like Cisco and Belkin might tackle the emerging connected home space together, with Cisco handling the backend platform software and Belkin the consumer-facing gadgetry.

As for Cisco, it’s certainly not abandoning the Wi-Fi market, it’s just going back to its roots, focusing on enterprise and service providers. In fact, when it comes to enterprise Wi-Fi, Cisco is doubling up on its investment. It bought Meraki Networks in November for $1.2 billion.

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Netgear says the booster device is simple to use, and based on the description, I’m inclined to agree. You just plug the device right into an electrical outlet and press a button to connect to and extend the range of your existing wireless network using the WPS, or Wi-Fi Protected Setup standard.

This product, not available until later this summer, has my interest because I recently upgraded my home broadband to 75 Mbps service and I’m finding two problems. One is that traditional 802.11n routers have theoretical top speeds of 54 Mbps, so I’m not getting the full bandwidth on my wireless devices. I can live with that problem (for now), but the bigger issue is one of coverage.

No matter how I place my current router and base station extender, I’m losing my wireless signal in some places at home. That means my phone, for example, is automatically switching to more expensive mobile broadband service. The Netgear booster won’t solve the first problem, but it should help with the second so I’m hoping to take the product for a spin once it hits the market in the coming weeks.

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Nick Feamster of Georgia Tech

When it comes to home broadband networks, consumers are like toddlers, demanding everything they want, when they want it, delivered with no buffering, pixelation or slowdowns. Carriers are like parents, giving them limits and caps to keep them in line. But a project out of Georgia Tech using the OpenFlow protocol could change the way consumers control their home network — or it could change the way ISPs meter them.

Nick Feamster, an associate professor at Georgia Tech has developed Project Lithium, software designed for a home router that can be controlled via a web interface. With it, a consumer or carrier can set parameters for how traffic behaves on the home network. So a consumer might prioritize their VoIP traffic over a download, or tell the router to stop their Netflix traffic from a child’s laptop after a certain time, or if it reached a certain gigabyte level.

ISPs could also use the tool on their end to set similar constraints and develop custom-pricing plans. So right now, ISPs claim that bandwidth caps are a means of managing network congestion — something I’ve long taken issue with since other methods of limiting use such as congestion pricing make much more sense — but with a fine-grained tool such as Lithium’s they’d have more options for prioritizing traffic. Feamster thinks that could make the need for a broadband cap obsolete. But for more on the project check out the video below, or visit here to download software you can install on your own router if you’re so inclined.

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AirDrop will be based on peer-to-peer networking, thus simplifying setup. The new system has some similarities to Bonjour, Apple’s “service discovery” system for networked computers, printers and other devices, and to third-party “zero-configuration” networks like Hamachi, but unfortunately, will not be available outside of one’s own Wi-Fi network.

With AirDrop and protocols such as Wi-Fi Direct and Qualcomm’s FlashLinq technology, the rise of P2P networking protocols between devices is growing rapidly. Such technology will be increasingly important in adding intelligence and awareness to our gadgets as we bring more and more connected devices into our homes.

Now that the value of connecting a device to the Internet is undisputed, the idea of connecting those devices together makes sense. So while AirDrop and effortless file sharing is the killer app today, expect smarter devices and sharing to arise that take advantage of this type of technology. With AirDrop, Apple may be the company that makes P2P networking between devices accessible for the masses.

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1. A decade is probably too long to analyze any market, let alone home networking.
2. It’s a market of a thousand turf wars — many of them over now — for physical layers, software protocols and product categories. (Fun piece of home network nostalgia for the day: While Intel no doubt helped Wi-Fi go mainstream with Centrino, the company once saw Home RF as the future of the wireless home. Luckily for them, they eventually came to their senses.)
3. The home network has become a critical but largely invisible services platform for all things from Netflix to pay TV.
4. As connected entertainment becomes the dominant traffic and demand driver,  the nature of the home network itself is changing.

One technology, Wi-Fi (and the spec underlying the Wi-Fi brand, 802.11x) not only won the turf wars, but effectively dropped a nuclear bomb on any competing networking technologies. In fact, it’s a pretty easy argument to make that Wi-Fi has been the single most important technology in the connected-home marketplace for the past decade.

But while Wi-Fi continues to be required on any connected entertainment device, that doesn’t mean the experience of Wi-Fi is always optimal. Anyone whose streamed Netflix over a significant range or a few walls knows the quality of the stream falls off pretty quickly, and sometimes will not work at all.

So what else is there?  In the pay-TV space, U.S. providers like Verizon have settled on MoCA (a coax-based networking technology), while many European IPTV providers have adopted powerline, in particular HomePlug, for in-home distribution.

While MoCA is almost exclusively a service provider technology, HomePlug is also available at retail, where all indications suggest the technology has started to take off. Discussions I’ve had with both home networking equipment and chip providers over the past few weeks put estimates of consumer powerline shipments at close to 10 percent of Wi-Fi unit shipments today. That may seem like a small number, but it’s one that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

This growth in powerline networking hasn’t gone unnoticed by the industry, as almost the entire powerline networking market was rolled up over the past year and a half. It started with Atheros buying Intellon, then Sigma bought Coppergate (for powerline & HPNA networking), Marvell picked up DS2, which likely spurred Broadcom to buy Gigle.

With all of this investment in HomePlug from the silicon side, there’s no doubt more integrated chipsets will make there way to market. One of the early efforts is by Atheros with their Hy-fi integrated Wi-Fi/HomePlug solution, which has been resulted in new Wi-Fi routers from both D-Link and Netgear that feature HomePlug ports.

This embrace of powerline isn’t a sign that Wi-Fi is on the decline, but instead that numerous technologies need to be embraced as entertainment distribution shifts to IP. In fact, the industry recognized that making all disparate home networking technologies work together should be the end-game, and to help reach that goal the IEEE has started efforts to create a software abstraction layer to enable seamless networking no matter what the physical layer.

See my weekly analysis at GigaOM Pro where I define three trends — one of which is alternative high-speed networking technologies — define the future digital home.

Image courtesy of flickr user viagallery

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Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs

Update: Qualcomm announced Wednesday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Atheros in a deal valued at $3.1 billion.

Original post: Qualcomm is reportedly in talks to buy Atheros, a rival wireless chipmaker in a deal valued at $3.5 billion, according to the New York Times. The paper cites sources close to the deal saying that it could be announced as soon as tomorrow. Qualcomm and Atheros could not be reached for comment. The deal would enable Qualcomm to move beyond its cellular technology base and into myriad other wireless technologies gaining ground in the home and in other networks such as smart grids. Atheros makes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HomePlug and several other wireless networking chips used in home routers, cell phones and set-top boxes.

Qualcomm has a history of buying smaller technology firms for their IP but this would be a unique deal in that Atheros is a larger, established silicon vendor (it would also be Qualcomm’s largest at the rumored price tag). For example to boost its WiMAX IP Qualcomm purchased Flarion, for MIMO assets it bought Airgo and for some Bluetooth technology it purchased the assets of RF Micro. However, Qualcomm is trying to get ahead of the puck as it were by picking up Atheros. Qualcomm’s expertise and fortunes have been made on the cellular networking side of the tech world, as it built chips for cellular networks and the brains inside cellular phones. But its core IP is around the 3G CDMA technology that will gradually decline in use as later generation cellular networks gain ground.

Qualcomm’s WiBro UltraMobile Broadband 4G standards effort and its MediaFLO mobile television efforts were both attempts to build and own the intellectual property around future cellular-style networks. But they didn’t pan out, so Qualcomm’s relying on its Mirasol display technology, a to-be-announced personal area networking technology and other smaller efforts to fill the coming CDMA revenue gap. Atheros buys it both a new revenue stream as well as technology that expands Qualcomm’s footprint deeper into the home and gives it more silicon inside mobile devices. Theoretically, Qualcomm could take Atheros’ silicon knowledge in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, combine it with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon application processor plus cellular radio and put an entire cell phone on a chip.

For now, I’m making calls and will update the story I learn more. But for those in the wireless chip industry and smartphone business, this is a big deal. Qualcomm’s taking the Wi-Fi and mobility craze that Intel created all the way back in 2003 and seeking to own the silicon to make such an unwired lifestyle possible across phones, smart grid networks, home networks and even in sensor networks. Nice.

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Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr user The Pug Father

WD says the adapter is a perfect companion for devices like its own WD TV Live Plus media player, which can be used to stream Netflix movies or locally shared content to your TV. The WD TV player doesn’t come with Wi-Fi on board, forcing users to either string an Ethernet cable through their living room or buy an external Wi-Fi adapter.

It’s an inconvenience, but WD is hardly the only cheapskate in terms of on-board Wi-Fi. So-called Internet-ready TVs and Blu-ray players often come with the same type of constraints. Have two or three of these devices in your living room, and the Livewire might actually look like a good deal.

The other reason to buy into this is obviously to overcome Wi-Fi connectivity issues. I had a chance to play a little bit with the Livewire kit over the last couple of days, and it actually seems to work quite well for this purpose. I’m not living in the largest house, but Wi-Fi does sometimes drop off when I try to watch TV in the bedroom. With Livewire, I didn’t have any of these issues. In fact, I could even use it with one of my basement power plugs and still download files from my NAS with 50 Mbit. That’s nowhere close to the advertised 200 Mbit, but still twice as fast as my Wi-Fi connection.

WD is not the only company offering these kits, and competitors like Netgear and Cisco sell products geared toward video consumption in the living room. Part of this is driven by the existence of the HomePlug AV standard, which is supposed to standardize entertainment networking via home powerlines. WD’s Livewire kit is compatible with HomePlug AV, which should mean that you can securely run multiple networks within the same home, but I wasn’t able to try that out.

Related content on GigaOm Pro: Why We May Never Reach Home Network Nirvana (subscription required)

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