The future digital home (DH) is envisioned as a place where a plethora of diverse personal and machine-to-machine communications will coexist to support different applications in areas such as information and entertainment, home automation, home health care and home security and management. Wireless technologies are usually the preferred solution to cope with DH communications for their ease of installation and use. However, expected capacity demand and the lack of coordination between an increasing number of diverse wireless devices in use within the DH is seriously challenging the performance and usability of wireless technologies. This article outlines a novel technical solution intended to enhance capacity and quality of DH wireless communications. The proposed solution establishes a radio-independent coexistence framework where key operational radio settings of DH devices are coordinately determined, and new spectrum sources other than traditional ISM bands can be exploited for DH communications. The addressed solution enables a business player to offer management services for DH wireless communications so that ordinary users can be relieved of complex management tasks likely to arise within the DH. The article discusses how potential management service providers could benefit from the proposed solution. Besides, the functional architecture of the proposed solution together with the set of procedures necessary for the management of the DH wireless communications are outlined. A realistic indoor scenario is presented as an illustrative use case to show how proper decision making logic in managing the DH could improve the efficiency by selecting the most suitable spectrum for in-house wireless communications. Finally, the main implementation issues are identified and discussed in order to outline a feasible roadmap.

Peer Reviewed