Celeno brings Wi-Fi to Amino set-top boxes

Celeno Communications is looking to land its Wi-Fi technology in consumer living rooms after landing a deal to supply Wi-Fi solutions for Amino Communications' IPTV set-top boxes.

Celeno's OptimizAir Wi-Fi chipsets will be used globally by Amino in its hybrid  IPTV/over-the-top gear. The companies said that Wi-Fi/Ethernet bridges powered by Celeno's CL1830 system-on-a-chip as an after-market addition to the Aminet A130, A140 and A540 set-top boxes.

Applications enabled by these bridges include whole-home wireless PVR functionality, allowing the consumption of centrally stored content anywhere in the home.

The deal also involves Wi-Fi-enabled USB dongles using Celeno's CLR250 chip that can be added on an after-market basis to IPTV set-top boxes to support reception of HD and OTT content. "The USB dongle is a valuable after-market tool," Lior Weiss, vice president of marketing at Celeno, told FierceBroadbandWireless. "It will be bundled with Amino set-top boxes, but you could also see a situation where some service providers might want to put their own branding on the dongle."

Celeno currently employs 802.11n technology, but we couldn't let Weiss get away without asking him about when the suddenly hot 802.11ac standard could have impact in products like set-top boxes. "It's an incremental evolution," he said. "You will see it in retail this year, but service providers will not be looking at it for this segment until the end of 2013 or early 2014."

For more:
- see this CED story

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