Arris expanded its retail strategy with last week’s debut of a new line of ‘SURFboard’-branded routers and extenders that aim to deliver whole-home coverage with equipment that pairs WiFi with a high-speed backbone that relies on a home’s powerlines.

Arris’s powerline-based platform uses G.hn (branded by the vendor under the “RipCurrent” moniker), a home networking platform that competes with HomePlug and, to an extent, the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), which uses a home’s coaxial lines.

Arris also offers a range of whole-home networking products that use MoCA, though most of those are focused on platforms that are being delivered and managed by cable operators and other MVPDs.

Arris also looked at MoCA for its new retail router line, but found that there are more complexities around that technology with respect to in-home wiring, Tom Boshell, director of global retail sales at Arris, said.

Using a combo of G.hn, powerline and WiFi, he said, offers a way to deliver ubiquitous coverage in the home with a retail product that offers a relatively easy self-install option, he added. Arris believes the router/extender set up will eliminate dead zones in homes as video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive apps on home networks on a broader range of devices become increasingly prevalent.

Arris started to make its new line available for pre-order via the Arris Store and at Amazon.com. According to the Arris Store, the expected ship date is April 29.

Here’s the new product lineup:

WiFi Routers with RipCurrent:

-Arris SURFboard SBR-AC1200P (802.11ac, four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and four internal antennas): $119.99

-Arris SURFboard SBR-AC1900P (802.11ac, four GigE ports, six internal antennas): $199.99

-Arris SURFboard SBR-AC3200P (“tri-band concurrent” 802.11ac, four GigE ports, six internal antennas: $299.99

RipCurrent-enabled extenders:

-Arris SURFboard SBX1000P:  $59.99

-Arris SURFboard SBX1200P (dual-band concurrent): $99.99

Arris has also developed iOS and Android apps to assist with installation and management of the user’s home network.

The product introduction expands Arris’s retail efforts under its own SURFboard brand. For a time, Arris had offered retail products under both its brand and the Motorola brand following its acquisition of Motorola home in April 2013. Zoom Telephonics  inked a deal last year to use the Motorola brand in cable modems, routers and set-tops sold at retail, and launched its initial Moto-branded product lineup in February 2016.

Here’s a promotional video about Arris’s new G.hn-based retail router product family:

Sky, the U.K.-based video and Internet service, Sky shed a few more technical details about Sky Q, its next-gen whole-home, multiscreen video platform, announcing that it will use AirTies Wireless Networks’ Mesh technology to enable and manage WiFi on all Sky Q devices.

Sky Q, slated to launch in the early part of the year, will feature an array of connected devices, including the Sky Q Silver and Sky Q – primary boxes for the home’s main TV that’s packed with 12 tuners and 2 terabytes of storage; the Sky Q mini (a WiFi-connected box for viewing on secondary TVs), and the Sky Q Hub, a gateway-style device that will use Powerline- and WiFi-based technology to communicate with Sky Q boxes.  The provider has also developed the Sky Q app for tablets, with plans to extend support to smartphones later this year.

Sky’s new platform will use AirTies’s Mesh system to deliver linear, over-the-top and stored local content to Sky Q-compatible devices that are hanging off the home network. Last month, Cisco Systems announced that it will provide security for Sky Q, including its Cisco VideoGuard Everywhere, as well as its headend platform for service delivery, and its set-top middleware.

Supporting a hybrid system with both wired (via powerline) and wireless (via WiFi) was important to Sky for it to address the challenges posed by the varying types of building materials that are used in subscriber homes.

“We've got a somewhat challenging situation from an architecture standpoint,” Andrew Olson, director of new products at Sky, said, noting that WiFi can have trouble penetrating thousand-year-old stone walls and cinderblocks.  “Using different technologies… allows us to create this great network and extend the WiFi coverage for all of those standard devices throughout the home to make the network stronger, which we think is really important for customers." 

And it fits well with “Fluid Viewing,” the term Sky is using to describe its whole-home video experience. In addition to supporting live and VOD across screens, Sky Q will also allow subs to download some VOD assets as well as shows recorded to the DVR.

“Once people start to get a taste of being able to get the same content flowing across these different screens, it becomes a really powerful story,” said Olson, who joined Sky in February 2012, and previously served as COO at Comcast within its Converged Products Group, which played a key role in the development of X1, that MSO’s next-gen video platform. He joined Comcast via its 2006 acquisition of multiscreen publishing firm thePlatform.

While a device with 12 tuners might seem like overkill, Sky believes that number fits well with consumer viewing trends as more and more content becomes available to them.

In an example scenario, Sky Q will enable viewing on the main TV and to two Sky Q Mini boxes, and streaming to two tablets – at the same time – while providing enough tuning overhead to record four additional programs.

“It’s a huge step forward,” Olson said. “It's a bit of a golden age in content…there are more things people want to record than ever before." 

Blending TV with OTT

Sky Q will also open the door to OTT content. But rather than tacking that content on as separate apps, Sky will integrate those partners with the Sky Q experience. Announced content partners for that initiative include YouTube, Vevo, Barcroft TV, Electus, and Funny Or Die, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired, GoPro, Jukin Media, Kin Community, Red Bull Media House and Whistle Sports.

And what about Netflix, which has been integrated with Virgin Media’s TiVo-powered platform?

“We’re definitely talking to a lot of different partners,” Olson said. “We’re definitely open to working with other people, but we are strongly prioritizing brining the content natively into the experience.”

As for that experience, Sky Q will add a voice-based navigation capability later this year, and is enabling its platform to stream in audio by integrating it with Apple AirPlay.

On tap: Ultra HD

Looking further ahead, Sky Q will also support Ultra HD content, including on-demand movie titles and some live sports, later this year. But rather than streaming that content, Sky Q will rely on progressive downloads in an attempt to unify how that content is delivered via speedy fiber-based connections as well as slower DSL links.

Sky plans to deliver 4K fare using the new bandwidth-efficient HEVC codec. Early on, Sky Q won’t offer any YouTube content in 4K because that implementation requires VP9, which currently isn’t supported by the Sky Q hardware.

On Monday, AirTies also announced a hybrid mesh software platform for in-home networking that supports the management of WiFi connections as well as several wired-based technologies, including powerline, Multimedia over Coax Alliance, and Ethernet.

“Hybrid Mesh enables the next-generation of video distribution in the home” said Bulent Celebi executive chairman and co-founder of AirTies, in a statement. “Today we consume HD video - soon to become ultra HD - on mobile devices in addition to multiple TVs.”