The future is (almost) now: HDTV over home networks soon?

A new home networking standard promises to link devices over power lines, coaxial cables and telephone wires at high speeds, enough to deliver HD video to any room in a house, and it will be in place in the next year or so.

The standard, currently known as G.hn, has just passed the first phase of tests by the International Telecommunications Union, and hardware based on it could appear in products by 2010, maybe even sooner.While the standard is being defined by the ITU, it will be promoted by the HomeGrid Forum, a group of vendors that currently includes Intel, Panasonic and Texas Instruments, which ensures that it won’t disappear beneath the waves.

HomeGrid execs said that G.hn should allow data rates up to 400Mbit/s over coaxial cables, up to 200Mbit/s over power lines, and a medium range over phone cables.

This could be huge for the mass acceptance of HD in the marketplace, so we’ll keep an eye on its progress.