Home gateway architecture for generic multimedia services

Development of a prototype residential gateway based on low-cost off-the-shelf PC components is described. The goal is to show how such a gateway might operate to satisfy the requirements of a broad spectrum of customer requirements, from basic remote metering to full multimedia services. It features network enabled BIOS extensions or OS kernel extensions, which allow most of the gateway operating system modules and services to be loaded remotely from a head-server over a network link.