In-Home Digital Network (thing)

(abbreviated as IHDN) IHDN is the generic term for all digital networks you (will) possess within your home like Firewire, Ethernet, Powerline, ... . One can distinguish three uses of IHDNs, each of which relates to a needed bandwidth:

• home control: remotely switching lamps on and the heating off, checking the refrigerator content, ....; bandwidths up to 100 Kb/s (needed for big refrigerators :)
• communication: giving a call to the neighbours (with ISDN or via Internet), video phone calls, browsing the web, connecting all your PCs to your in-home file server, ....; bandwidth: single or double digit Mb/s
• multimedia entertainment: view satellite TV with only one satellite receiver on every digital TV within your home, automatically record the latest CBS news on your digital VCR and play them anytime, have the current TV program follow you to the nearest TV set while you clean up the house, ... ; bandwidth: hundreds of Mb/s

Many IHDNs require new cabling (i.e. Twisted pair, Firewire, ...), which is annoying to install into anything but newly-build houses. A few approaches therefore either try to use existing wires (like Powerline) or no wires at all (called 'wireless' using mostly RF).