A software architecture for open service gateways

Two industrial trends are changing our day-to-day lives. One is the introduction of broadband service to the home, where it promises to deliver complex new services. The other is the increasing resourcefulness, connectedness, and intelligence of home appliances. A residential gateway is a networking device that creates a bridge between the broadband network and the in-home network, and between different networking technologies within the home. The article gives an overview of this emerging marketplace, and introduces the work ongoing at the Open Service Gateway initiative. OSG1 is defining a set of open-standard software application interfaces (APIs) for building open-service gateways, including residential gateways.