bMighty SMB TechEncyclopedia

(HOME Radio Frequency) A wireless technology from the HomeRF Working Group, Portland, OR, founded in 1998 by Compaq, IBM, HP and others. In early 2003, the Group disbanded due to lack of interest in competing against the Wi-Fi standard. The HomeRF open standard used the Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) to transmit in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band between mobile and desktop devices within a range of 150 feet at 1 or 2 Mbps. Up to 127 devices could be addressed. Derived from the Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT) standard, HomeRF used a frequency hopping technique that changed 50 times per second. Each 20 ms frame contained one CSMA/CA slot for data and six full-duplex TDMA slots for voice. See wireless LAN and Wi-Fi.