Planning for Future Bandwidth Growth in Wired Communication Systems

When selecting the ideal wired communication technology for your system, the right solution goes far beyond just covering the necessary range. How much bandwidth flexibility do you need to future-proof your system? Future bandwidth demands are constantly evolving as applications become more data-intensive. Will your system be able to handle increased data loads in the coming years?

To address these concerns, Nessum’s 4th Generation Technology introduces a game-changing solution: Flexible Channel OFDM. This cutting-edge technology offers a broad selection of channels, enabling you to choose from options that provide up to 8 times the range and 64 times faster PHY (Physical Layer) rates. With this unprecedented flexibility, you can fine-tune your network’s performance, ensuring it’s always optimized for your unique needs.

Understanding the Cable Loss and Frequency Range

In any wired communication system, cable loss plays a crucial role in signal performance. In the MHz frequency range, the skin effect becomes dominant, causing signal attenuation that increases with frequency. Essentially, as the frequency rises, the signal strength decreases, typically in proportion to the square root of the frequency.

For example, reducing the frequency band by a factor of 100 can increase the communication range by up to 10 times. This understanding of cable loss is crucial when selecting the ideal frequency band for your network, allowing you to balance performance and range based on your needs.

The Challenge with Traditional Wired Communication Technologies

Traditional OFDM-based technologies—such as narrowband PLC (Power Line Communication) (e.g., G3-PLC) and broadband PLC (e.g., Homeplug AV2)—often present difficult trade-offs. These systems can have frequency differences of up to 100 times and PHY rate variations of up to 1000 times, forcing users to make a tough decision between range and speed. For example, if a broadband PLC system cannot provide sufficient range, the only option is to switch to a much slower narrowband PLC, which significantly reduces data transmission rates. This forces a trade-off between coverage and performance, making it difficult to optimize the system.

How Flexible Channel OFDM Works

Nessum’s Flexible Channel OFDM solves this issue by offering a wide range of frequency options, giving you the flexibility to choose between low-frequency bands for extended range or high-frequency bands for faster speeds. This versatility ensures you can find the perfect balance between range and performance for your system. Here’s how it works:

• High-frequency band (CID x-8): This band uses frequencies from 4 MHz to 56 MHz, supporting high-speed communication with PHY rates (~500 Mbps), but with a shorter range.
• Low-frequency band (CID x-24): Operating between 62.5 kHz and 875 kHz, this band offers a significantly longer range, though with a slower PHY rate (~7.8 Mbps).

 

For example, if CID x-8 provides a 1 km range, the following channels offer the corresponding distances:

•     CID x-1: 1.4 km
•     CID x-2: 2 km
•     CID x-24: 8 km

In this case, if your system needs a 2 km range, selecting CID x-2 gives you the ideal combination of range and speed, without the need to compromise.

The Power of Flexibility

Nessum’s Flexible Channel OFDM technology offers a level of flexibility that traditional wired communication technologies simply can’t match. Whether you need to extend range for remote locations or push the limits of speed for high-demand applications, this technology gives you the freedom to choose the optimal channel for your system’s needs.

Conclusion

With Nessum’s 4th Generation Flexible Channel OFDM technology, you no longer need to choose between range and performance. The broad selection of channels allows you to design a wired communication system that is both highly efficient and adaptable to future demands. By selecting the right channel for your network, you can maximize system performance today and ensure it remains scalable for the future.

Get Started Today

Order your Evaluation Kit and experience the benefits of Nessum today!

 

About the Author
Kengo Tamukai is a senior engineer specializing in wired and wireless communication technologies. With over 20 years of experience in LSI design, system architecture, and technical marketing, his expertise spans SoC design, OFDM-based technologies, and hybrid communication systems, driving innovation in modern digital networks.

 

Despite exponential growth in recent years, the smart home video security market is not without its challenges. As competition increases, manufacturers are looking for new ways to differentiate their products with high-quality media streaming, motion detection and other enhancements.

One of the biggest opportunities for differentiation is by making video security solutions easier to deploy. Conventional technologies like WiFi and Ethernet come with added installation costs and headaches, which can be frustrating for both customers and support teams. WiFi-based solutions may require the purchase of range extenders and even then may suffer from latency and reliability issues. Ethernet, meanwhile, adds significant installation costs, often requiring professional installers.

That’s why smart home device manufacturers are increasingly turning to broadband powerline (BPL) solutions, like Nessum. Based on IEEE 1901-2020 and ITU G.9905, Nessum is an international standard for high-speed, long-range communication over any wire. Nessum is the smart alternative to WiFi for DIY Video-Doorbells and other security devices, such as Video-Floodlight cameras, in-home security cameras and sensors, as well as other cloud-based voice service platforms.

Plug-and-Play Upgrades for Modern Video Doorbells

Traditionally, home security systems rely on closed-circuit television. With the expansion of the home automation market, customers are looking for more robust digital monitoring solutions like video doorbells.

Video doorbell designers can choose between wired or wireless communication technologies. As mentioned above, WiFi-enabled devices may suffer from receiver sensitivity and noise from other wireless devices, which makes video streaming less efficient in areas with poor reception. 

An ideal smart home video doorbell solution should fulfil the following requirements:

• Installation simplicity that saves time and budget
• Network stability, fast, and secure
• Higher bandwidth for video transmission

With the smart home market evolving by the day, it’s important to design applications that go beyond today’s requirements and deliver the functionality and compatibility required for the next generation.

MegaChips’ Nessum System-on-Chip (SoC) gives you a true plug-and-play solution that delivers broadband speeds. Your customers will enjoy faster, easier installation, rock-solid reliability, wider coverage, and increased security.  The small form factor is weatherproof and offers higher thermal efficiency.

With Nessum, there’s no need to drill into walls or rip and pull wires. Your customers can easily set up and configure their DIY security system. And you’ll spend less money helping frustrated consumers troubleshoot WiFi connection issues.

Nessum makes whole-home broadband network upgrades a breeze for your DIY category of home security products.

Design Smarter Video Doorbells with Nessum (HD-PLC) SoC

MegaChips’ Nessum SoC is the perfect solution for modern smart security systems. Employing the latest broadband technologies, it delivers reliable high-speed, bidirectional, IP-based communications over AC and DC power lines, coax, and twisted-pair.

Nessum is well capable of delivering high-definition video, Internet, and other large streams of data covering the whole house, making it ideal for all your smart security applications. Connection speeds are fast and reliable over existing power line networks inside the home. It operates well in noisy environments, and over both the standard and AFCI breakers typical of a residential house.

Megabit Speeds: Capable of delivering speeds up to 500Mbps over any wire, MegaChips’ Nessum makes it easy to upgrade standard doorbells to new smart video doorbells. Your customers will enjoy lag-free security wherever they are. Without replacing a single wire. 

No Interference: Nessum solves the problems inherent to PLC by applying orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) broadband communication. Based on multicarrier modulation, the signal is sent through several adjacent channels so that the subcarriers overlap and are independent of one another. Connected devices circumvent narrowband interferers, group delays, jammer signals, and frequency-selective attenuations.

Increase Bandwidth: Nessum also employs forward error correction (FEC) to send data over a variable time period and provide an error check that the data received is correct. Your device can operate at higher frequencies to achieve a better channel for communication on power lines.

Built-in IPv6 Support: Nessum uses IPv6 multicasting so you don’t need to install new wiring to support the bandwidth required by network cameras. Using existing wiring infrastructure helps simplify the deployment while creating bigger networks, and increasing throughput for video transmission.

Fast & Easy Installation: Offers the convenience of mesh networking with support for any topology (bus, daisy chain, star, etc.). This eliminates the complexities of network planning and commissioning, allowing end-users to integrate the new video doorbell system into the IP network by simply plugging in and powering the devices.

Ethernet-to-Anything Bridging: Simple bridging enables system convergence. Nessum supports twisted-pair, coax, Ethernet, power and even phone lines, so no modifications are needed for broadband applications. It includes on-chip powerline-to-WiFi bridging, making it easy to integrate devices like video doorbells into the rest of the smart home network, providing a convenient starting point for a robust security system.

Overall, Nessum offers high-definition video, Internet, and other large streams of data covering the whole house making it ideal for all your smart security applications.

To learn more about Nessum advantages and performance, download our applications brief.