Wouldn’t it be wonderful to automate some of your household chores, and leave
home knowing that everything is safe and secure? With the delivery of network-based
smart services through the home gateway, you could:
• Get a discount from your utility for letting it manage appliance use
during peak periods, or schedule your dishwasher to start automatically during
discounted rate periods.
• Subscribe to a security service (on demand) to watch your home or let
in a relative when you’re away.
• Set up home monitoring and other home-based services for your elderly
or infirm relatives to help them comfortably maintain their independence while
other family members travel.
• Take photographs on your trip to Yosemite, view and print them with your
TV, send them to friends and relatives with a screen phone, and incorporate
them into a home video.

These services and more are coming. At the 2001 JavaOne^SM
Conference, a booth called the Connected Den featured Java™ technologies powering
the next-generation smart homes. Using residential gateway devices and set-top
boxes as the nerve center for the connected home, Sun and its technology partners
demonstrated exciting new services for home control and automation, interactive
television, entertainment on demand, and advanced telephony.

The Home Gateway

The home gateway — a small, dedicated device that links networked devices
— is the key to the connected home. The home gateway requires minimal or
no upkeep by the homeowner, and is the platform for the delivery of new value-added
services on demand. For example, using the home gateway would make ordering
a home security service for a two-week vacation as easy as ordering a pay-per-view
movie from TV today.

Adding an embedded server transforms any broadband termination device into a
home gateway. For more than two years, Sun has offered the Java Embedded Server™
(JES), designed to comply with the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) specification,
for accessing services through the home gateway. The idea is to bring a technologically
enhanced lifestyle to consumers who buy these products and services, and, in
turn, bring new revenue to the companies that sell these new technologies.

In the case of utilities, the smart meter deployed for automated meter reading
build-outs could include the Java Embedded Server. Several leading AMR vendors
are now incorporating Java Embedded Server into their latest products.This means
that a utility could justify the investment in AMR infrastructure by not only
the immediate productivity gains, but also the new revenue streams from the
Connected Home service offerings.

Most importantly to the consumer, all the services of the home gateway can be
managed by external service providers. Just like cable or phone services, home
gateway services are there when they are needed — the consumer doesn’t
need to understand anything about how or why they work, just that they do.

Delivering Services Through the Home Gateway

Deregulation of telephone, cable, and utility industries has blurred their
roles. Now, cable operators are moving to offer Internet access and phone services
in addition to basic cable services. Phone companies are offering high-speed
Internet access, and eventually will add video-on-demand services. Utilities
are exploring energy management as well as potentially becoming Internet service
providers.

In this competitive environment, service providers must not only protect existing
revenue streams, but also find ways to generate new revenue. Increasingly, they’re
looking at the Internet to offer new value-added services to networked home
customers. Some new services under development for this market include communication,
entertainment, home control, and information services.

Figure 1- Home Gateway Usage Scenario

Insight of the Future

The opportunity for service providers is to enhance home gateways by hosting
and running value-added, subscription-based smart services — in other words,
to become service gateways. Broadband providers will aggregate and personalize
smart services on behalf of the consumer, providing high-margin value compared
to today’s low-margin, broadband offerings. Traditional retail distribution
will sell network-based products as part of an aggregated solution set. In fact,
any vendor that touches the consumer — including telecommunication companies,
multiple system operators, ISPs, utilities, application service providers, and
device manufacturers — could provide individual smart services (service
creators) or aggregate and personalize a suite of smart services (service providers).

Demand Side Management Becomes a Reality

Echelon Corporation, a leader in auto mating home devices through the Internet,
is already taking advantage of this opportunity. “We’re bringing our customers
significant cost savings and increased conveniences by linking the various everyday
devices in the home to the Internet via LonWorks,” explains Jeff Lund, Vice
President, Business Development and Corporate Marketing at Echelon. “For example,
our smart LonWorks devices can automatically reduce energy consumption in response
to real-time power availability signals from a utility company. That means the
utilities don’t have to shut down large portions of their distribution grid
to avoid a total power outage, as is happening today in California.”

OSGi — Service Delivery Standard

How can service providers efficiently and economically aggregate, manage, provision,
and deliver a host of diverse services? A service delivery standard is the missing
link in the networked delivery of multiple managed services over wide-area networks
to local networks and devices in the home. To fully develop the market for residential
gateways, a broadly embraced open standard is critical.

The Open Services Gateway Initiative was formed in 1999 to define a framework
for provisioning and remote management of managed services on service gateways.
Today, more than 70 companies have committed to support its full incorporation
and charter. A founding member of OSGi, Sun Microsystems is also a major contributor
to its technical foundation.

The initial OSGi specification is a layered framework application based on Java
technology, which provides the flexibility to support the wide range of phone
line, power line, and wireless network standards. It gives service providers,
network operators, device makers, and appliance manufacturers the vendor- neutral
application and device-layer application programming interfaces and functions
they need. A set of core and optional APIs define a service gateway.

The OSGi standard will help ensure that service providers, like Utilities, will
have access to a large variety of content/ services and service gateway devices
from independent vendors that can be used for their service offerings.

Making It Happen

Already, service providers are poised to begin technical trials, service creators
are readying smart service products, and service gateways are entering the market.
However, a key challenge remains — integrating these services and the required
underlying infrastructure into a cohesive offering.

Sun is working to provide an end-to-end services solution through its alliances,
products, technologies, and services.
Working with a range of technology partners such as those in JavaOne’s Connected
Den demonstration, Sun will create an environ ment where service providers can
verify the interoperability and stability of their smart services with those
of other companies, as well as showcase their OSGi services to service providers.
This environment will also enable service gateway manufacturers to demonstrate
and market their products to potential service provider partners.

Through these partnerships, Sun is committed to making available end-to-end
solutions based on open standards that will make consumers’ lives more productive
and more enjoyable.