|
Feature
April 2000
Master control
The standard that could animate the connected home.
Adam Marsh, Coactive Networks
The concept of the fully networked home has captured our imaginations. And a growing number of products are competing for a place in the home. These products would let you interact not only with your computer, but with any electronic device in your entire castle.
You'd have control, whether you were actually in your home, or in a hotel on the other side of the world. Turn on the heat and lights in the vacation cabin in time for your arrival. Before you leave the office, query your refrigerator to see if you've got milk. Send vital signs and diagnostic readouts from an ailing family member to a remote medical team.
We're seeing an unprecedented proliferation of exciting new devices and technologies. But without ground rules and a foundation for communication, the home could be headed for chaos. If these technologies are destined to become a part of the way we live, they need a universal platform to ensure interoperation and ease of use. What will it take to create the convergence that will make today's new technologies as pervasive as the great lifestyle-altering technologies of the past—the automobile, the telephone, and the computer?
It's not always a matter of superior technology. Nor does it necessarily hinge on who gets there first. In an environment of rapidly evolving business models and innovation, what factors determine which specific new technologies and ideas achieve universal adoption?
The Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi), is a coalition of companies that has focused on the residential gateway as a necessary central appliance, the link between all those smart devices and the world beyond. Formed just a year ago, OSGi now has over 45 member companies worldwide. The group is moving rapidly toward delivering an open, common architecture that will allow service providers, system developers, and equipment manufacturers to easily create, deploy, and manage these multiple services in a coordinated fashion. With its vision of bringing the truly integrated and networked home and small office out of the realm of sci-fi and into the now, OSGi is defining a series of standards that will allow more players to participate in the same game (see sidebar, "OSGi up close").
Open standards evolve from a collective effort. While they are usually based on some dominant technology, they aren't exclusively dictated by a single large, powerful player. Rather they are defined collaboratively so that more players can participate.
Central point
OSGi defines a service gateway as a device that links all the networks and appliances inside a home or small office to the outside world via an Internet access network such as DSL or cable. It goes beyond simple Internet access and beyond PCs. It's a central point from which multiple communications-based services can be deployed and managed remotely, as shown in this diagram.
Whether the systems in your home are alerting you to the presence of smoke in the basement or transmitting your blood pressure readings to your doctor, the service gateway transforms the local raw data into useful information using local intelligence. More sophisticated gateways also enable communication among the systems connected to the gateway. For example, if a utility meter sensed energy usage above a critical threshold, the gateway might shut down the pool pump and send you an alert.
|
With the service gateway we're really looking at something that will become as ubiquitous as the supply of electricity to the home. |
|
To grasp the centrality of the gateway, contrast the gateway architecture with a scheme lacking a central focus. Your PC already communicates directly with the Internet, so it acts as a gateway in a limited sense. Manufacturers could also choose to install a similar gateway in just about every electronic device you own—your water heater, your TV, your refrigerator. But with a proprietary service gateway for every device, the home as a whole becomes unnecessarily complex as well as expensive. OSGi aims to make our lives easier by delivering many different services over a single infrastructure. It's a model aimed at driving down costs and making our lives simpler.
Services please
A standardized service gateway enables an incredibly broad range of services. Some are enhancements of services we enjoy already, and some are entirely new. You go on vacation, and while you're 3000 miles away you re-set your sprinklers based on a change in the weather forecast. You're on a business trip and you decide to disarm the security system so a neighbor can come in and check on your cat. Or you just arrived at the beach, and you log on to program the VCR for your favorite show—something you forgot to do before you left the house.
Perhaps you're still at the office, and you've just invited some last-minute dinner guests to your home for that same evening. What can you do now to prepare for their arrival? Adjust the ambient temperature in the house. Heat the oven so you can pop in a roast as soon as you get there. Program the CD player with music your guests will enjoy. Check the refrigerator to make sure you have some sorbet on hand for dessert.
"The true potential of the gateway lies in taking the Internet beyond the PC and opening a whole new world
of telemetry e-services."
David Gaw, Coactive Networks |
|
To give yourself peace of mind and assist in the care of an elderly or ill family member living alone, you might set up a camera for remote activity check-ins and arrange to transmit periodic or ongoing medical indicators to a health care provider.
 David Gaw
|
|
In fact, imagine any communications-based service across the multitude of devices in your home that would have an impact on your life. Chances are it would be made possible, and made possible at an affordable price, by a residential service gateway. Even many of the items in your home that currently have no technological links may have them soon. How about a medicine cabinet that talks to you about dosages or a picture frame that changes its image periodically? The importance of the service gateway is not about a single application so much as about the vast range of possibilities it engenders.
"There's been a lot of attention on technology to network your PCs to each other and to the Internet," says David Gaw, president of gateway provider and OSGi founding member Coactive Networks. "But the real value of the gateway is far beyond being able to surf the net faster or download music to your computer. The true potential of the gateway lies in taking the Internet beyond the PC and opening a whole new world of telemetry e-services. These services will change what the Internet means, transforming it from an information gathering tool to an intrinsic part of daily life."
Who's playing?
So what types of service providers are interested in adopting OSGi's standards? Certainly utility companies, telephone companies, and broadband providers. In addition, entirely new categories of hybrid companies can benefit enormously from these gateway standards by securing a greater value with consumers and generating new revenue streams.
One of the first major deployments of gateway enabled e-services is by Vattenfall, the largest electric utility in Sweden, which is rolling out services to 400,000 customer using gateways from Coactive Networks. Utilities are big potential users of gateways. For one thing, as deregulation occurs, utilities face new reporting requirements that put them under pressure to automate the meter-reading process. A residential gateway is ideal for utilizing the existing electrical wiring and Internet infrastructure to accomplish real-time, remote meter reads. Meanwhile, that same gateway, once installed in the home, easily connects with other intelligent devices, allowing the utility to differentiate itself on the basis of a variety of value-added services.
The value of these services is important to other telecommunications companies for similar reasons. But the value of the gateway extends to other players in the home. For example, a major appliance vendor may only get a chance to interact with its customer once every 10 years. After all, how often do you buy a refrigerator? However, if an online monitoring system were to track the presence and expiration dates of selected grocery items, along with purchase reminders and cooking tips, the vendor might develop a different business model based on a subscription service.
Let's share
A cellular phone is worthless without a cellular network. And it would not be profitable to be in the television broadcast business if no one had a TV. In the case of home e-services, we've already got a very usable infrastructure in the Internet. OSGi is laying the groundwork for a whole new group of service providers and product manufacturers to easily tap into that. They can create new markets, protect current business, and create new value chains. The real-time, services economy is on its way.
What OSGi is saying to manufacturers and service providers is, let's share a common gateway. Let's include communications, entertainment, home security, health care, energy management, and appliances. We don't each need to build a high-speed modem into our products. We don't each need to go out and lay cable or install wires. Let's agree on some open standards and utilize common infrastructures. The service gateway becomes a key market enabler, and we all benefit (see sidebar, "Home run").
|
Without ground rules and a foundation for communication, the home could be headed for chaos. |
|
An important feature of this gateway is that most of its foundation is software. It can be changed dynamically, and from afar. Change happens. In technology it never stops happening. A device that's primarily hardware requires someone to go out and modify it every time there's something new on the network. The multi-service gateway can be extended or reprogrammed with a simple software download. Service providers can remotely deliver new services right into the home without a truck roll. That's going to save a lot of money.
The OSGi specifications are not restrictive. If a company decides on compliance for a particular implementation, it can choose which network protocols it wants to incorporate. OSGi isn't going to dictate what kind of technology to use. It's just a matter of making it easier for service providers and the end user.
The OSGi is complimentary with most other residential standards or initiatives currently underway. The initiative focuses on the application layer and is open to almost any protocol, transport, or device layer. It is inclusive rather than exclusive.
Where we headed?
With the service gateway we're really looking at something that will become as ubiquitous as the supply of electricity to the home. And the delivery mechanisms and the technology should be just as transparent to the consumer. You want to be able to flip a switch and make it happen.
Another analogy is television. Joseph Bassi is an OSGi representative from Sun Microsystems. As he points out, "I can buy a TV and not worry about who manufactures it and whether its technology is compatible with my local cable company. The OSGi standards will give that same interoperability, the flexibility of choosing appliances and service providers and knowing they'll all work together. The service providers love that, because they don't want to be in the business of installing an infrastructure or answering questions about how to make the microwave talk to the printer. Gateway manufacturers love it because they don't want to have to create a customized box for each service and for each locale and market. And the consumers love it because we have all these choices."
OSGi is moving forward on defining a set of APIs and providing a sample implementation of a service-gateway architecture. A draft of the version 1 specification for the OSGi service gateway became available for public review March 31 and can be found at www.osgi.org. Moreover, expert work groups have been established to enhance that specification, as well as to develop new versions and address new areas with complementary specifications.
|
OSGi up close
The OSGi standard is a collection of APIs (application program interfaces). These APIs include a set of core APIs and optional APIs that together define an OSG compliant gateway. Where possible, the OSG is leveraging existing Java standards. Where standards exist that are not based on Java, the group focuses on integrating with these standards.
The core APIs address service delivery, dependency and lifecycle management, resource management, and remote-service administration. All of the core APIs are either contributed by a member or developed by the OSG technical working groups.
The optional set of APIs defines mechanisms for exporting resources to an HTTP-based web server, client interaction with the gateway, and data management.
OSGi offers a single member level, available to any for-profit or non-profit corporation, government, organization, educational institution, or other enterprise that supports OSGi's goals. Fees are $20,000 annually and apply for 12 months from date of registration.
The following companies are involved in the OSGi: Alcatel, AMD, Cisco Systems, Coactive Networks, Com21, Compaq, Deutsche Telekom, Domosys, Echelon, Electricite de France, emWare, Enikia, Enron Communications, Ericsson, France Telecom, GateSpace, GTE, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Invensys Controls, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Nokia, Oracle, Philips, ProSyst Software, Schneider Electric, Sharp, Siemens, Sonera, Sony, Sprint Communications, ST Microelectronics, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Telia Research, Tokyo Electric Power, Toshiba, Whirlpool, Yello Strom.
For more information visit www.osgi.org.
|
|
Home run
Just how big an opportunity does the networked home represent? The market may be small now, but looking ahead, think major league.
The worldwide market for home-networking equipment and residential gateways will grow from $600 million this year to more than $5.7 billion in 2004, according to Cahners In-Stat Group. That's an 850 percent increase, for those keeping score at home.
"From a market that a couple of years ago was seen as only a small niche to be served by networking equipment companies, today we see every company in the consumer electronics and PC industries, as well as the service-provider space, developing products and strategies for the connected home," says Michael Wolf, In-Stat senior analyst.
Wolf says it will take time and education for the market to progress from today's simple first-generation products to the full-blown connected home, in which connectivity is embedded in all types of devices. "The home connectivity market will not reach critical mass until consumers are shown that this technology is simple and adds value to their lives," he says.
In addition to equipment vendors, service providers also stand to benefit big. In-Stat places the market for connectivity-based services at $3 billion by 2004. This counts all types of services enabled by home networking, such as additional voice lines, entertainment, and home-management and -monitoring.
|
Author information
Adam Marsh is vice president of marketing and co-founder of Coactive Networks of Sausalito, CA. Coactive provides commercial and residential gateways, enabling the Internet to reach all of the devices, appliances, and computers in homes and businesses. Marsh holds a master's in physics from MIT and a bachelor's in mathematics and physics from UC Berkeley.
|
