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| Formation | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | 2010 |
| Type | Non-profit trade group |
The Universal Powerline Association (UPA) was a trade association that covered power line communication (PLC) markets and applications. The UPA promoted and certified power line communication technology from 2004 to 2010.
An interest group for the UPA was established by the founding members in May 2004. A memorandum of understanding was signed by the founding members in September 2004, and the UPA was officially announced in January 2005. It was a non-profit trade group registered in Belgium. [1] Design of Systems on Silicon (DS2), a supplier of integrated circuits and software for PLC, was among the founding members; UPA systems were based on its technology. Other members included: AcBel, Ambient Corporation, bpl, Corinex Communications, IBEC, Netgear, PCN Technology, Toshiba, Toyo Network Systems, and Junaid.
The Universal Powerline Association released specifications related to three aspects of powerline technology. The UPA coexistence specification was published in June 2005. The UPA Access specification (the European OPERA project endorsed specification for Internet access over power lines) was published in February 2006. In-home systems and solutions, called "triple play" scenarios, were published in February 2006 as the UPA Digital Home Specification v1.0. The UPA worked with international standardisation bodies such as IEEE and ETSI. Certification events (known as Plugtests) were held in January 2006 and 2007, with products demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show. [2]
DS2 had financial problems in 2010. [3] Marvell Technology Group acquired the intellectual property of DS2 in August 2011, although it continued to provide UPA specifications compliant devices. [4] With the exit of DS2 from the market, the UPA suspended activities in November 2010 and discontinued its website, although the UPA market continued through Marvell and its partners.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables and connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad variety of USB hardware exists, including eleven different connectors, of which USB-C is the most recent.
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Power-line communication carries data on a conductor that is also used simultaneously for AC electric power transmission or electric power distribution to consumers.
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The HomePlug Powerline Alliance is a trade association of electronics manufacturers, service providers, and retailers that establishes standards for, and tests members' devices for compliance to, the various power line communication technologies known as HomePlug.
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Qualcomm Atheros is a developer of semiconductors for network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. Founded under the name T-Span Systems in 1998 by experts in signal processing and VLSI design from Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley and private industry. The company was renamed Atheros Communications in 2000 and it completed an initial public offering in February 2004 trading on NASDAQ under the symbol ATHR.
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Design of Systems on Silicon, officially Diseño de Sistemas en Silicio S.A., (DS2), was a supplier of integrated circuits and software for power line communications. The company was founded in 1998, and went out of business in 2010 after trying to expand into other home network technologies.
Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) is a proprietary link layer protocol for network topology discovery and quality of service diagnostics. Microsoft developed it as part of the Windows Rally set of technologies. The LLTD protocol operates over both wired as well as wireless networks.
G.hn is a specification for home networking with data rates up to 2 Gbit/s and operation over four types of legacy wires: telephone wiring, coaxial cables, power lines and plastic optical fiber. A single G.hn semiconductor device is able to network over any of the supported home wire types. Some benefits of a multi-wire standard are lower equipment development costs and lower deployment costs for service providers.
The CU project controversy involved years of protest against a proposed high-voltage direct current powerline that was erected on the property of hundreds of farmers in west central Minnesota in the late 1970s. The electrical cooperatives Cooperative Power Association (CPA) and United Power Association (UPA) proposed construction of the powerline, which was part of a larger project that also involved the construction of an electrical generating station and coal mine.
In 2009, a European Commission initiative resulted in the specification of a common external power supply for use with data-enabled mobile phones sold in the European Union. The external power supply is the AC electric power adapter that converts household AC electricity voltages to the much lower DC voltages needed to charge a mobile phone's internal battery. Although compliance is voluntary, a majority of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers agreed to make their applicable mobile phones compatible with Europe's common external power supply specification.
The Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) is a family of specifications published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) used in conjunction with the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard for smart grid applications. OSGP is optimized to provide reliable and efficient delivery of command and control information for smart meters, direct load control modules, solar panels, gateways, and other smart grid devices. With over 5 million OSGP based smart meters and devices deployed worldwide it is one of the most widely used smart meter and smart grid device networking standards.