Specifications

TVs, stereos, and PCs will no longer simply coexist; they will communicate.
PC MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 www.pcmag.com
114
I
n the next year or two, home networks, once reserved for
alpha-male geeks and work-at-home computer professionals,
will have moved into the mainstream. Take a walk through any
consumer electronics store and you’ll likely find an aisle
devoted to home-networking equipment. And broadband providers
are supplying more innovative products directly to consumers.
Most of today’s and tomorrow’s first-time home networkers are
just looking for the simplest, most effective way to share resources
with family members, including broadband connections.
“All-in-one home networks in a box, provided by cable compa-
nies and produced by manufacturers like Motorola, Netgear,
SMC,
and Toshiba, are a real driver and growing trend in home net-
working,” says Aaron Vance, industry analyst with Synergy
Research Group. This type of product integrates a cable modem
broadband router, a firewall, and now often a print server and
wireless home gateway in one device.
Once they’ve set up this basic box, they’ll be ready to do more
with their home
LANs, says Vance, and products await them when
they’re ready to take the logical next step. After years of hearing
about media convergence, we’re finally starting to see some real, live
convergence products, such as the TiVo Series
II Digital Video
Recorder, the Gateway Connected
DVD Player, and a wide range of
media hubs. These devices extend the use of the
LAN beyond
computing and into the world of home entertainment.
Some consumer electronics manufacturers aren’t so sure that
current
LAN technology has enough horsepower for home media
convergence—especially in terms of home entertainment. Though
wired Ethernet provides ample bandwidth, the difficulty and
expense of running it through walls make a convincing argument for
going wireless, especially for those new to home networking.
Start-up Magis Networks has developed a proprietary wireless
system, using the same 5-
GHz band as the standards-based 802.11a
wireless technology, for streaming media. It has enough bandwidth
to transport several simultaneous
HDTV streams. Magis, backed by
strategic investors like
AOL Time Warner, Hitachi, Motorola, and
Sanyo (some of whom have also invested in 802.11a) could lead to
divergence in home networking rather than convergence.
Products such as the new Philips iPronto—a combination Web
browser, universal remote control, and media guide—help bridge
the gap between
PCs and consumer electronics. The iPronto uses
802.11b wireless technology to connect to your modem and then
the Internet to download real-time programming data.
Regardless of which road networking technology takes, there
will be no real convergence without content. The desire to move
content throughout the house (or, dare we suggest, have it follow
you around the house) is what will drive ever-larger numbers of
people to invest in networked homes.
“Hollywood doesn’t even know the
PC exists,” says Bradley
Morse,
VP of marketing at D-Link. “Convergence isn’t something the
PC
industry can drive by itself.” But Hollywood will have to deal
with the software and licensing issues, he says, adding that Sony,
with its connections to the
PC
, movie, record, and home entertain-
ment equipment industries, is likely to lead the way.—Les Freed
“The home network will become the backbone
for delivering broadband services, entertain-
ment, Internet sharing, home controls, gaming,
and much more,” says Victor Tsao, vice presi-
dent and general manager of Linksys. “New
homes will offer home network setups just like
carpet upgrades today.” Tsao credits the explo-
sive growth to the rapid increase in broadband
availability coupled with cheaper, simpler
home networking gear.
Analyst Michael Wolf, of the research firm
In-Stat/
MDR, is excited by several trends
within the home-networking space. “Gaming
consoles will be the first networked entertain-
ment appliance for many home network
users,” he says. The next step for PlayStation 2
and Xbox is for them to become “centralized
entertainment servers,” because they already
have powerful processors and ample hard
drive space—though in the case of the Play-
Station 2, the hard drives won’t arrive in the
U.S. until the first quarter of 2004. “The ability
to manage music, video distribution, and
instant communication will be available
through these devices,” Wolf says.
In addition, the emergence of low-cost,
user-friendly, Web-enabled wireless network
cameras could have a big effect. Wolf said he
believes products like the D-Link i2eye Broad-
band Videophone and the soon-to-arrive Sony
eyeToy, which connect to a
TV for videoconfer-
encing, have great potential. “Long-distance
relatives, resource-strapped small businesses,
and others will be able to communicate using
videoconferencing,” he says, “and they won’t
even need a computer!”
In a few years more
Home Networking