Tied Together: Ways to Create Home Networks

WSJ

Tied Together: Ways to Create Home Networks

By BOBBY WHITE

January 8, 2008; Page D1

The proliferation of new home gadgets and entertainment options has made connecting all these systems more important than ever -- and also more confusing, as networking companies rush to offer new technologies, both wired and wireless, to address the issue.

Eric Karlin, a software consultant in Apopka, Fla., used to have only two personal computers and a printer to connect together. In the past couple of years, though, he has added a videogame console, a TV set-top box that downloads movies from the Web, and another set-top box that sends TV shows over the Internet for viewing on remote computers or cellphones.

Getting all those devices to communicate with each other hasn't been easy. Mr. Karlin says he would typically buy a piece of networking hardware, but after a few weeks complications would arise, resulting in another visit to the electronics store to replace the problematic gear.

Finally, after searching the Internet for an alternative, he bought a $259 wireless kit from Ruckus Wireless Inc. He already had been using a wireless network, but the new equipment sends data files faster and is easier to use with multiple devices.

"I think I have solved my problem -- well, at least for now," says Mr. Karlin.

Experiences like Mr. Karlin's are a hot topic at the Consumer Electronics Show that is running through Thursday in Las Vegas. "Home networking used to be for the geeks, but not any longer," says Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. "For a lot of people, it's become vital."

Many consumers now have high-definition TV sets that play content originating from cable or satellite networks or a new generation of disc players. They may want to start watching such movies or football broadcasts on a TV in one room, and finish watching them in another. The richer images of such digital content translate into bigger data files, requiring networks with greater capacity.

Consumers also are spending more time viewing Internet content, such as homemade movies on Google Inc.'s YouTube site. Some of them would like to watch that fare on their TVs in the living room -- not the desktop PC they have in the den.

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To cater to all the new demands, hardware makers are unveiling brand-new networking technologies and improving existing ones.

The most widely used option now is Wi-Fi, a wireless technology that has become commonplace on laptops. Consumers have opted for the technology because of its convenience, which saves them the trouble of stringing networking cable around the home. All that they need to do to set up a Wi-Fi network is buy a device called an access point -- sold by companies such as Cisco Systems Inc.'s Linksys unit and Netgear Inc. -- and plug it into the DSL or cable-modem hardware that provides their Internet connection. The price: between $70 and $300.

Wi-Fi is getting faster and more reliable. The most widely used version -- 802.11g -- has a maximum speed of 54 megabits per second. It is usually adequate for data and music files and low-quality video. But it isn't fast enough for high-definition video, and the flow of data can be temporarily blocked by interference from microwave ovens, cordless phones and other devices that generate their own radio signals.

The latest standard, 802.11n, is a lot faster, clocking in at a maximum speed of 270 megabits per second. It is also more resistant to interference and tends to have longer range. Users can solve some of their connection problems by doing what Mr. Karlin did: simply upgrading to wireless access points that use the 802.11n technology.

But some industry executives contend that even the faster Wi-Fi can experience hiccups in sending streams of high-definition video around the home and argue that wires will still be needed. Since 2005, a coalition of companies has been trying to get consumers to use coaxial wiring, a relatively inexpensive option that has long been used by the cable industry to wire millions of homes. Members of a group called MoCA, for Multimedia Over Coax Alliance, are promoting TV set-top boxes that can use the technology to move video over coaxial cable at up to 270 megabits per second.

Powerline networking, another low-cost option, transforms a home's electrical wiring into data-networking wiring. Backers say the technology can offer data-transfer speeds of up to 200 megabits per second, though surge protectors and other devices may cause interference under some circumstances.

Another solution: wires that send data between devices in the same room while reducing the rat's nest of wires behind them. DVD players and VCRs have long been connected to TVs with three wires, with two plugs for audio and one for video. But many devices are now supporting a newer technology called HDMI, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, that uses a single cable and plug and costs less than $50.

Then there is FireWire, which competes with another wired technology called USB -- for Universal Serial Bus -- in connecting devices such as external hard drives and camcorders to PCs. By next month, FireWire backers are expecting approval of a new version that will increase its maximum speed to 3.2 gigabits per second from 400 megabits per second. The price: also under $50.

But even one wire is too many when it hangs down from that fancy new plasma TV mounted on the wall. Some companies have been working on short-range radio technologies that can replace wires connecting nearby video components, though regulators are still evaluating them.

One of these is called Ultra-wideband, or UWB, which sends small pulses of energy across a broad swath of the radio spectrum. At distances of as much as about 10 feet, it can transmit as much as 500 megabits of data a second. It comes in two variants: Wireless USB, whose supporters include Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., and CableFree USB.

A newer, faster option is WirelessHD, which is expected to transmit signals at between two and five gigabits per second and uses extremely high radio frequencies to avoid interference with other wireless gear. Because of its high speed, WirelessHD doesn't require video images to be compressed for easier transmission, resulting in a better picture.

But consumers may not want to wait until these technologies become widely adopted. "It's going to be a good little while before either UWB or WirelessHD catches on," says Bob Rango, general manager of the wireless connectivity group at Broadcom Corp. "I'm talking years."