Home Gateway Initiative's new CTO up for the challenge

July 2, 2008 - The Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) has appointed a new Chief Technology Officer in Duncan Bees, a telecoms & CE industry stalwart and previously co-chair of the HGI's Quality of Service group.  Speaking to ipTV News, Mr. Bees discussed his plans as new chief technologist for the organisation, and outlined the manifold work it is planning to further the home gateway as an enabler of next-generation consumer services. 

Mr. Bees has previously worked at Nortel during the 1990s on wireless and signal processing technology, before moving on to become a Technical Advisor on access products for chip company PMC-Sierra, as well as being active in work by the DSL Forum (recently renamed to Broadband Forum) and the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).  His work with telecoms carriers and experience in technologies which enable interaction between the home gateway and devices in the home, including hardware orientation and performance requirements, reflects the HGI's drive to make the home gateway a more powerful piece in the home networking jigsaw.

"As broadband access speeds get higher, hardware demands are increasing," he said.  "Quality of Service optimisation is a key capability of the home gateway, and we're looking at things like the QoS requirements of other devices in the home, such as wireless access points and powerline networking devices, to support these demands.  Other aspects such as energy efficiency are also on the agenda.  We plan to publish guidelines soon on how home gateways can interface with network termination devices, as well as deliver service pieces on new offerings such as IMS and IPTV, and the requirements made by these services on home gateways.  In the longer term, topics such as IPv6 and how to manage modular software are also gaining interest from telecoms companies, and our work will reflect these developments."

Recent research by the Home Gateway Initiative has predicted that the worldwide market for home gateways will increase substantially in the short term from 16.2mn at the end of last year to 34mn in 2009, driven by operator deployment of advanced services such as IPTV.  The organisation recently issued its ‘Home Gateway Technical Requirements’ specification document, which includes triple/quad play, IMS support, Fixed-Mobile Convergence, Quality of Service, and Remote Management for home gateways. The HGI has also recently published guideline documents on Parental Control, Remote Access and Performance Metrics.

Mr. Bees takes over from Paolo Pastorino, who will return to his role at Telecom Italia as Project Manager, following a three year tenure at the HGI.