Consumers hooked on home networking

Sales of home-networking products grew 97 percent to $290 million in 2000, a new study shows. The market for networking kits that connect PCs, printers and peripherals and that allow people to share a Net connection reached $147 million in 1999, according to the report by Cahners In-Stat Group.

In the wireless PC card market, Lucent Technologies led with 34 percent market share, followed by Proxim with 28 percent, and Intel with 13 percent. Sohoware ranked fourth with 7.6 percent and Buffalo Technology with 5 percent, the study said. Intel dominated the phone-line networking kit market with 53 percent market share. Phone-line products allow people to link PCs together through regular telephone jacks. Linksys captured 11.6 percent, while 3Com was third with 8.5 percent.