Gordon Laing

Home networking has become one of the fastest growing consumer technology markets. Many homes now have two or more PCs, and it makes sense to share resources.

Broadband in particular is driving this market and, once you've experienced how easily it can be shared, you'll wonder why on earth you used to limit internet access to just one PC.

It's not just about PCs, as an increasing number of electronics devices want to get online, to play games, download TV schedules or stream sound and video. Plug them into the same home switch as your PCs and sit back in the knowledge that your broadband has become better value.

While sharing an internet connection is sufficient for many to buy into home networking, the idea of broadcasting actual digital media from room to room could be the catalyst for even more rapid adoption.

A PC packed with digital photos, music and videos could stream them on demand to simple consumer appliances throughout your home. This media could be transported by the same network used to share your broadband, which makes the connected home a tempting proposition.

The problem is that it doesn't necessarily work as well as you'd hope. With all new technologies, the hype quickly overtakes what's realistically possible. I fear something similar is about to happen with home networking, especially when it comes to media streaming.

On the surface, home networking employs the same principles as a business network: at their heart lies a hub or switch into which everything connects, be it PCs, a server, network printer, wireless access point, consumer appliance or broadband router.

Many broadband routers include small built-in hubs or switches, making them the convenient centre of a home network.

So far so good, but how were you going to connect all your devices to the hub? In an office, you'd normally run lengths of Cat-5e cabling to each device, and this can be repeated at home.

The result would be an affordable, secure, high-speed home network which is happy to transport high-quality media streams to multiple appliances and distribute internet access to anything that wants it, but it results in many new cables.

Most households are unwilling or unable to run great lengths of cabling between rooms, so they look to alternatives. The most obvious is wireless networking, although other technologies let you piggy-back data onto existing phone or power cables in your walls.

Since each solves the problem of visible cabling, the only question mark over installing a home network seems to be answered. However, although wireless, power and phone lines may eliminate the need for conventional network cabling, they don't match its level of performance.

Power and phone lines may be a neat way to get your network from one floor to another, but they're rated at 10Mbps and 14Mbps, with around half delivered in practice.

The popular 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards are quoted as 11Mbps and 54Mbps, although our tests have delivered around 6Mbps and 15Mbps respectively, and remember they're subject to increasing congestion and interference issues.

In contrast, the 100Mbps cabled networking facilities offered on most PCs as standard should deliver in excess of 60Mbps in practice, while Gigabit networking, which is 10 times faster still, is turning up on many new systems.

Lower speeds may be sufficient for sharing broadband and streaming photos or music, but streaming video could push them over the edge into choppy playback, especially if it's high quality or there's more than one stream running simultaneously.

As always, it boils down to your expectations and whether you're happy sharing broadband, with streaming music, photos and video encoded at modest bit rates.

If, however, you assumed your home network could transport many streams, some of which sport DVD-quality video without breaking a sweat and can handle greater future demands, there's only one solution: conventional network cabling.

When people hear this, they react with horror. They don't want a load of new cables messing up their homes. They've bought into the exciting world of wireless freedom and aren't about to be tied back down by the evil of cabling.

But there's a very simple way to enjoy the freedom of wireless and the performance of cabling: use both for your home network.

If you were prepared to equip every device with wireless, power or phoneline adaptors for discrete networking, you'd probably have a budget that could pay for high-performance Cat-5e cabling fitted discretely between key rooms.

You could then use wireless only as a means to connect untethered devices such as PDAs, notebooks, or devices that cannot be reached by a cable.

Within a couple of years, technologies like Ultra Wide Band will deliver the kind of high-speed wireless connectivity that could see the end of many cables. But until then, don't kid yourself that wireless is the solution to all your networking problems.

It's a neat technology, but currently best used when complementing a backbone of conventional Cat-5e cabling, rather than replacing it entirely. Bear this in mind when planning your home network and you won't be disappointed.

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