HOME OF THE PRESENT

My brother Mike is a big geek. Always has been. So it didn't surprise me to learn two years ago that Mike was a broadband early adopter, or that he turned his three-bedroom condo in Austin, Texas, into a broadband-networked home.

Mike lives in a 110-unit, two-building condominium complex, in which he estimates there is 99% Internet penetration among the residents and up to 80% broadband penetration — well above national averages. His home network hardware includes a cable modem, a Linksys CableModem/DSL router and firewall with a four-port 10/100 Ethernet switch, a Linksys 10/100 autosensing hub, two PCs, a networked laser printer and a laptop he often brings home from work.

Mike said the advantage of having broadband in a networked home has more to do with immediate, ubiquitous Internet access than any one application. “The always-on connection is the most useful and compelling reason, which is ironic because it has nothing to do with the speed of the connection. There are very few compelling applications that require more than a 56k connection.”

Mike has also been trying to send streaming video of his newborn son, Aidan, to Uncle Dan in Chicago, with mixed results. “I wish I had compelling apps to choose from, like video-on-demand, videoconferencing and so on, but those aren't really out there in usable form,” he said. “The great broadband lie is that there is not much of a reason to have broadband.”

Another downside has been local provider Time Warner Cable. Costs have gone up about 10% since Mike's been a subscriber, which is opposite what he thinks should have happened, given that service is now more widely available. Time Warner's installation and customer service capabilities have also failed to impress.

“Some bozo from the cable company installed the cable modem,” he said, describing how the technician had trouble installing an Ethernet card on his PC. Mike finally used Broadjump software to activate service himself.

Between cable and telco hijinks, Mike said he would consider other alternatives, such as the wireless LAN his complex is building. The plans are to get a business-class DSL connection and share it with all the residents using 802.11b.

“It seems to be a compelling alternative,” he said. “If cable modem penetration in our complex goes from about 50% to zippo, I wonder if Time Warner will notice.”