Home networks in 2005

Thought you installed a lot of home network equipment in 2004? Wait ‘til 2005. Here are our predictions for what's ahead:

Prediction 1: Wireless 802.11a will gain traction in the home; power line and wired Ethernet will continue to make in-roads.

The wireless network vendors did a great job convincing consumers to unwire their PCs and laptops. But streaming television content from one TV to another requires technology that current wireless standards handle poorly or not at all. We expect CE vendors, lured by a clean band and high performance, to choose 802.11a (and possibly pre-802.11n) to handle high-bandwidth traffic.

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Thought you installed a lot of home network equipment in 2004? Wait ‘til 2005. Here are our predictions for what's ahead:

Prediction 1: Wireless 802.11a will gain traction in the home; power line and wired Ethernet will continue to make in-roads.

The wireless network vendors did a great job convincing consumers to unwire their PCs and laptops. But streaming television content from one TV to another requires technology that current wireless standards handle poorly or not at all. We expect CE vendors, lured by a clean band and high performance, to choose 802.11a (and possibly pre-802.11n) to handle high-bandwidth traffic.

Wireless coverage holes and even security issues continue to make power line network gear a good complement. But there’s still a strong case for Ethernet, too. With increasing numbers of devices adding an Ethernet port, we expect router and gateway makers to add more ports to keep up. Wireless will still be the main connectivity route for mobile devices, but for stationary devices, Ethernet will remain popular. We expect to see some 8-port wireless routers for a consumer audience in 2005.

Prediction 2: The PC as home entertainment hub will continue to gain steam.

One look at the partnership between Microsoft and Intel (www.digitaljoy.com) shows you how serious they are about controlling the living room. The challenge will come in convincing people their “digital home” needs a new computer. Power users can turn their existing equipment into a "media center" with a TV tuner card, some digital video recording software and other third-party tools. And you can be sure Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba won't take this affront to their market lying down -- they'll want to make sure that their equipment (TVs, stereo systems, set-top boxes) stays in the center of the entertainment universe.

We're not predicting the end of the Media Center PC (too much money and marketing dollars are in play). However, prices do need to come down to drive consumer interest. With media streaming available by other means (such as via TiVo or a wireless media receiver), Microsoft and Intel need to design a Media Center PC that’s more than a new computer with some interesting features.

Prediction 3: The videophone will finally see some success.

This year, Vonage did a great job bringing voice-over-IP service to new markets, and its partnerships with vendors such as Linksys and Netgear have gained VoIP much-needed visibility. Now Vonage is moving into the video phone arena - the company recently announced a partnership with Viseon to provide video phone service for Viseon's broadband video phone.

Other vendors have launched video phones in years past, but we think this partnership might create the spark the category needs. The challenge will be to see whether DSL and cable providers deliver the synchronous bandwidth the application requires. The last time we tested some video phones, we were frustrated by our cable service’s pokey 128K bit/sec upload speed (even though we had 3M bit/sec downstream). For videophones to take off, providers need to offer standard upload speeds of at least 256K bit/sec; 512K bit/sec is preferable.

Read more about home networks in Network World's Home Networks section.