Connecting the home networking dots

The home networking boomlet has paid off for Larry Stone.

The Oakland, Calif., Web designer's expertise with wireless technology has scored him brownie points with his father-in-law, better results at work and even a steady supply of free beer from his neighbor. Despite the rewards, however, he wonders whether home networking is still more hype than reality.

"The promise of it is encouraging, but many of the parts aren't in place," Stone said. "Making content available on your home network is more technical than your average home user can handle. If I didn't enjoy figuring it out, I wouldn't have done it."

News.context

What's new:
There's equipment out there to connect almost anything in your house that has a computer chip, and manufacturers really, really want you to buy it.

Bottom line:
The market is being held back by the complexity of networking products, which keeps some users from exploiting their gear's full potential and keeps other from even trying--or buying.

More stories on home networking

The technology industry is placing big bets on home networking as a catalyst for new sales, not only for nuts-and-bolts equipment such as wireless routers, but for whole new categories of products and services, from Internet phone calling to "smart" kitchen appliances to assisted in-home medical care.

The reality for now, though, is more pedestrian: For most people, home networking is nothing more than a fancy name for sharing the same printer between two computers, or making a broadband connection from any room in the house. Of the 30 million estimated consumer broadband subscribers, about 17 million U.S. households have so far purchased home networking products. Shipments of wireless routers jumped to nearly a billion units in 2004 and are expected to continue to grow at double-digit percentage rates over the next couple years.

Yet there is strong evidence to show that very few buyers of home networking products use their equipment for more than the most rudimentary tasks. Of 2,700 people surveyed recently by research company Parks Associates, about 95 percent said their desktops were connected to their networks. Printers came in second, at about 75 percent, followed by laptops at 49 percent. Fewer than 10 percent of homes had other devices, such as handhelds, stereos, game consoles, televisions and stereo speakers, connected to their networks.

Nearly nine in 10 people surveyed said they use their home networks to share broadband connections. About 42 percent said they use their networks to share digital photos, compared to 35 percent for music, 22 percent for video and 20 percent for games.

Filling the void
Those numbers indicate a big hole for consumer electronics makers, which are hoping to take home networking to the next level in 2005 by targeting the home entertainment market with a slew of new devices, such as media-oriented PCs and networked personal video recorders (PVRs) and DVD players. The goal is to convince people to store lots of digital media in a central location, known as a media server or "hub," and broadcast the files wirelessly around the house to any number of different devices.

"The challenge for the industry in the short run is to move consumers to multimedia streaming and central drive sharing," said Kurt Scherf, an analyst with Parks Associates. "We know there is a critical mass of homes with at least digital music stored on their home computers--the trick is getting them to access that content over their networks."

News.commentary
Getting home networking into second gear

Gear makers, ISPs, retailers--everyone has to do a better job of educating consumers about the benefits of home networks.

One challenge facing consumers interested in building robust home networks is the relative dearth of compatible devices.

Not surprisingly, PCs make up the largest device category that connects to home networks. However, the scarcity of other devices and their low impact is noteworthy.

Manufacturers have been readying new products to tap into home networks, allowing consumers to access content on a broader array of devices.

Last year, TiVo added a networking feature, Home Media Option, to its standard digital video recorder service. The Home Media Option lets

Home Networking - not ready for prime time

There have to be 100,000's of Larry's across the country, I am one of them. I have 2 neighbors right now I am helping on home networking add that to the other 5 over the last 2 yrs.

They all end up saying, "how is the typical home owner supposed to do this?" these are college educated upper middle class folks - they could shell out the $100/hr for computer fix it van to come out but they have heard it is simple and have gotten stuck. As we all know it is not plug a phone into a jack and go type of world. They all hear about WI-FI and think that should be simple - and find out yeaks - how come I am getting 3 wi-fi networks in my house when I only have 1.

Been a long time since I used Mac's - back then they seemed to have figured out plug-n-play networks. If it is still true then I would love to tell people - buy a MAC, dump AOL-DSL and your set. But that is not what it should take (still dump AOL-DSL however - a proprietary snake-pit).

And of course what makes it more interesting now after Christmas are the kids that want to do internet gaming on X-box or PS-2. I thought all these teenagers were supposed to be computer geeks?

I dont have a solution, just facts that you still need someone to setup a home network and it should not take a $100/hr tech person - it should be $200 and then I would quite my day job! HA!

That's a pretty big market...

A billion wireless routers shipped last year? At that rate every
person on the planet will have one in another five years. What
are we going to do with them all? Or is there some hyping going
on here?

networking NOT on windows...

just buy a few macs, they network just fine with no problems at
all. i don't see what all the fuss is about :-D Ok ok, I do. I tried
to network my xp laptop to my xp desktop a year ago and it was
impossible, never worked right. Now with my ibook and
powermac, I haven't had a problem yet. Just setup a WDS
throughout my whole house, networked my printer and even
have a network based KVM piece of free-ware that...all in about
30 min. try that on xp.

Same here

I use an Apple AirPort Extreme base station to access a pinter
and broadband Internet anywhere in my home from my iBook
G4. As soon as I can afford it I'll put an AirPort Express behind
my entertainment centre to stream music direct to the Hi-Fi
from iTunes. Also on my wish list:
A Blue Tooth phone so that I only need to update my Address
Book once.
And a WiFi enabled PDA to get e-mails on the road from
hotspots.

I'm also pondering a Mac mini as a kind of D.I.Y. Media Centre
device, but that's beyond the scope of the average user.

The most tedious part was torturing my PC into joining the
network. Now I have everything I need on the iBook I never
power up the PC anymore. It'd be put to greater as a Linux file
server, if only I had somewhere to put it where I wouln't hear it's
incessent fan noise.

[catchall]

ya right

Right, 2 clicks on the PC is ugly and complex. 2 clicks on the Mac is intuitive.
Making a home network with Windows boxes is easy, kids. Right click what you want to share, choose 'sharing'. A wizard walks you right through it.
That having been said, regardless of what machine you build you home network out of, folks need to understand what they are sharing and to who. That little wireless router will be happy to share your files, as well as your connection, with your neighbors.