“MoCA” may not be a household term, but just wait. More than 25 million U.S. households will use it by 2014, says Vinay Gokhale, an executive with chipmaker Entropic Communications.
MoCA stands for Multimedia Over Coaxial Alliance. It’s a standard for networking several televisions and digital video recorders together in the home.
Both Entropic and Qualcomm Atheros want to make that network into something more: Something that can send data to wireless tablets, notebooks and smartphones.
Entropic and Qualcomm Atheros said recently that by the end of the first quarter, they will complete a reference design that will let wireless devices tap into a home’s MoCA backbone. The reference design will incorporate chips from both companies.
The two companies put forth their vision at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
All this comes as electrical engineers work on a way to let devices communicate successfully with each other using four technologies: MoCA, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and home plug power line.
Entropic trades on the Nasdaq as ENTR. Qualcomm’s Nasdaq symbol is QCOM.
— Brad Graves
