Pioneer Brews Home-Net Glue

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. is expected to announce today (July 30) that it has created a new home-networking task force to bolster its pursuit of such technologies — and to concoct a glue to hold its line of consumer-electronics equipment together.

To that end, Pioneer's home-entertainment and cable/satellite business units will meld minds — and research-and-development funds — to form a team focused on developing consumer-electronics gear with enhanced home-networking capabilities.

Led by vice president of product development Ray Tozaki, the group will combine elements of Pioneer's home-entertainment products with its cable and communications equipment, including its line of Voyager digital cable set-tops.

With the addition of home-networking capabilities, Pioneer, like its competitors, hopes its set-tops will become residential gateways, or central hubs in the home that share bandwidth and applications with other consumer devices, such as Web pads and personal digital assistants.

"Rather than having those two groups move on product individually, it made sense … to consolidate our product planning," said Pioneer vice president of sales and marketing Mark Gurvey.

Because home networking is becoming more widely accepted and adopted by consumers, Gurvey said, it's prudent for Pioneer to make some of these moves as Cable Television Laboratories Inc. continues to develop its CableHome specifications.

Pioneer's new home-networking task force extends its recent work on PioneerConnect, a software application that would ride on top of the company's existing Passport navigation platform, which houses an interactive programming guide. The company demonstrated a PioneerConnect prototype at last month's National Show in Chicago.

PioneerConnect's software footprint will be "fairly small, and won't kick out [third-party] applications," said Dan Ward, director of marketing for Pioneer's cable and communications unit. Still, it's "too early to say how large or small it will be, because it will grow in capability and shrink in size as [engineers] hone the code," he said.

Though elements of Passport are designed to interface with devices aside from the set-top, Pioneer argues that the TV screen is the most appropriate venue for controlling and manipulating a home network.

That approach gives consumers "a unified configuration off one remote control to talk to the DVD changer or the CD changer of an A/V [audio/visual] receiver," Gurvey said.

Considering the high cost of software development, Gurvey said Pioneer would not make any firm decisions about PioneerConnect until after it garners obligations from cable MSOs and other service providers.

"To take things to the next level, we want some sort of customer commitment," Gurvey said. He added that those discussions are underway, though Pioneer will have to convince cable operators that the arrangement is one that would drive revenue.

"If the [PioneerConnect] overlay and connectivity can provide an extra revenue stream, then that's what the MSOs will need to evaluate," Gurvey added.

Much of cable's home-networking attention has turned to possible moneymakers such as home monitoring and security. Those applications — such as manipulating home lighting or appliances — don't typically require massive amounts of bandwidth.

For example, @Security Broadband Corp. — a start-up with financial backing from major MSOs such as Adelphia Communications Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc. — has already initiated a number of cable trials. It has been suggested that a cable subscriber would be willing to pay between $30 to $40 per month for such a service.

Gurvey said Pioneer hasn't discussed potential partnerships with @Security Broadband, because to this point, all talk has been directed at cable operators.

On the set-top front, Pioneer's Voyager 3000 set-top comes with built-in, de facto connectors such as universal serial bus and infrared (IR), plus an option for a IEEE-1394 FireWire interface, giving the box "a very basic ability to network with A/V products," Gurvey said.

Two "major MSOs" are testing that box at four sites, said Gurvey, who added that volume production is expected in September. Early indications are that orders for 3000 units are in the "hundreds of thousands," but Gurvey wouldn't divulge which MSOs have placed them.

The likeliest candidate is Time Warner Cable, which is Pioneer's largest Voyager 1000 customer.

Gurvey said development of the personal video recording-enabled Voyager 4000 continues, although pricing of a box with an integrated hard drive remains an obstacle.

Pioneer wouldn't rule out the future manufacture of home-networking peripherals. For now, the company will rely on third parties for that.

Intel Corp. is one outfit that is making some noise on cable's home-networking front. In addition to a trial with Comcast, the chipmaker is touting its wireless Anypoint products' ability to co-exist with digital set-tops.

That equipment would simply snap into a set-top's USB port, said Barry Bonder, Intel's director of residential networking products.

"We would just have to load some drivers into the set-top," he said.