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November 2003 Issue

EDITOR'S LETTER

Building Home Networks

One of my cousins completed his 20 years with the U.S. Army this summer, retired and started up a computer support business. He?s busy. When we last talked, he?d just been in a client?s home office connecting several computers?to a cable modem.

Now ripe, the home networking opportunity was a long time coming. The industry signaled its interest when CableLabs launched CableHome in 2000, but it was two years before an MSO offered anything to its high-speed data subs?and that was merely a price break on a LinkSys router.

The pace quickened this past year with CableHome 1.0 certifications, rollouts at Cox and Time Warner Cable, and the arrival of CableHome 1.1. The networking technology matured, and demand hit mass-market scale. There are now high-speed data techs in cable systems giving people such as my cousin a run for their money.

The home networking train is out of the station. But where is it headed?

Maintenance contracts, gaming and other data-centric services are obvious applications, but how do you add video to the mix? A lot depends on the outcome of ongoing technical trials and the take-rate of digital video recorders (DVRs), which will drive demand for shuttling video around the house.

If it turns out that wireless can?t cut it, and if cable?s leaders are serious about the networked home, then they also may want to start paying more attention to how these homes are built.

That would be a good idea in any case, all the better to compete with satellite. But if last-foot networking becomes part of cable?s future, then it will be important to ensure that the infrastructure in new houses is ready for all of cable?s offerings. Negotiations with the consumer electronics industry advanced the notion of ?cable-ready.? The construction industry has a stake in that idea, as well.

Jonathan Tombes

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