The growth in the range of possibilities offered by home networks is leading to an increase in the amounts of data to be transported. Just how the future of powerline-based home networking will look is being exhibited by devolo at this year's CeBIT. The technology experts based in Aachen, Germany, present a proof of concept with the world's first 400-Mbps demonstration that is fully backwards compatible to HomePlug AV.

This new technology is intended to provide a net data throughput of up to 180 Mbps, making it twice as fast as current HomePlug AV solutions. Potentially it will be possible to transmit up to five HDTV streams simultaneously, to distribute high-definition video to several rooms at once, and to operate IPTV or VoIP. The demonstration at CeBIT will feature a Gigabit Ethernet connection, is compatible to HomePlug AV and co-exists with HomePlug 1.0 and HomePlug Highspeed 85. This demonstration from devolo previews a technology that could conceivably be ready for marketing in the second half of 2009.