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What's in the way of home networking?

By Toni Kistner
Net.Worker, 03/04/02

It seems obvious to me. If you're paying $40 per month for cable or DSL and have more than one PC, you need a home network to share the pipe, and maybe printers, files and games. Even so, research from In-Stat shows 58% of broadband households have multiple PCs, but only 27% have a network.

So what's in the way? For answers, I turned to Mike Wolf, In-Stat analyst and author of Speed! Understanding and Installing Home Networks.

What's holding back broadband households from setting up a home network?

"To them, networks are complicated and intimidating. What's DHCP? What's that all about? That's why Intel and 3Com got out of the market. Low margins, high tech support. Second, a lot of people don't know a network is relatively low cost. Most haven't gone out and shopped. People will pay $50 per month for broadband, but don't realize they can get an [Ethernet or home phone line] network for $100, or a wireless router/access point for $150. That's an amazing value.

What can people do today to make setting up a home network easier?

"Install Windows XP. The wizards are better, and the help menu is full of charts to guide you. Universal Plug and Play allows your router to recognize your network adapter automatically. XP isn't the end-all, but it's somewhat helpful.

"Second, if you go with wireless, buy all your gear from the same vendor. Though 802.11b products from multiple vendors are supposed to work together, sometimes software differences can make set up difficult for a novice. One common problem people have is that the access point won't recognize an adapter. This is often a physical problem. That's why they call 802.11b a two- or three-wall technology. If you have a big house, a PC in the attic probably won't talk to one in the basement. I suggest keeping the PCs within one or two rooms of each other. HomeRF gear actually has a better signal; I could walk around farther with my notebook using it than I could with 802.11b gear."

Aside from lack of education and ease-of-use problems, Wolf argues that the relatively low rate of broadband adoption impacts that of home networks. Currently, only about 10% of U.S. households have broadband.

So what's holding back broadband?

"Before the bubble burst, everyone assumed people would pay for broadband because there'd be neat applications. Free content like Napster drove broadband. But now that the content guys have gotten serious about cutting down on the content for free guys, and a lot of the venture capital money has disappeared, it's cut down on innovation and slowed growth. Today, a lot of people are questioning why they should pay $40 per month when all they do is e-mail and some surfing.

"Then there are technical issues. The copper network isn't ready to be a video distribution network. The business models haven't been figured out. Who's gonna own and manage the [customer premises equipment]. Will people want packetized voice from their cable providers? Do they need intelligent gateway?

"Third, a lot of people get their high-speed connection at work. After sitting in front of a PC for eight hours, they don't want to come home and pay $40 a month to do it some more."