Reasons for Establishment

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, as of February 2024, the number of FTTH/O broadband users in China has reached 610 million, and the home network industry has become a "new blue ocean". In addition, the WLAN has become an indispensable part of home networks and is the most widely used method by families to connect to the Internet. It has become essential to smart homes. Terminals such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, cameras and smart home appliances all need to be connected to WLAN. The number of devices supporting WLAN in family homes continues to increase and the number of terminal access points continues to increase, which is promoting the transformation of traditional WLAN from "a best-effort network" connection to a reliable, controllable and high-quality network connection. However, home WLAN users have been facing issues, such as "application lag, poor remote meeting connections, weak signals and frequent network disconnection", resulting in a sharp increase in complaints about the quality of these home's WLAN. Therefore, users have doubts about whether they can rely on WLAN to run applications that require high-quality network service. The main reasons for the existing WLAN issues in home scenarios are that, on the one hand, there are currently a large number of home gateways, wireless routers and other relevant products of many different brands and with different levels of performance on the market while users lack the ability to identify the network performance and quality when purchasing WLAN products; on the other hand, the indicators and testing methods are inconsistent in the home network product evaluation reports released by multiple evaluation agencies on the market, which to a certain extent makes it more difficult for users to choose the appropriate home WLAN products. 

Therefore, the industry urgently needs to establish technical indicators and test and certification systems for products such as home gateways, FTTRs, wireless routers and home networking equipment for home scenarios, so as to provide operators and consumers with a reference for selecting high-quality home networking products.

Standard Scope of Work

The home working group mainly focuses on conducting technical research on the networking topology, network capabilities, business experience, security, green energy saving and other aspects of a single household device (such as home gateways, wireless routers, etc.) and home networking equipment (such as FTTR, AC+AP, etc.) based on WLAN application demands in home scenarios, proposing technical indicator requirements and standardizing testing methods, and providing technical and standards support for the WAA to carry out testing and certification for related products. 

The home working group will set up task forces (TFs) for specific, technical research based on home WLAN application demands, carry out technical research, standards development and other work, and promote related testing and certification work.