Networking comes home: Western Cable Show gives sneak peek at future services

Though still in its infancy, the home networking market quickly is becoming one of the newest battlegrounds between cable operators and telcos in the evolving broadband Internet access market.

At last week's Western Cable Show in Los Angeles, cable operators got a preview of the future with a live demonstration that united multiple PCs, set-top boxes and even a refrigerator. Far from the typical home of the future seen at many trade shows, though, the home networking solutions found in the CableNet area showcased technologies currently available. And in a market where standards still are being ratified by several industry groups, much of the technology revolved around the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance standard, which allows users to connect devices with existing twisted copper pairs in the home.

ADC Telecommunications, which provided its Homeworx IP-Integrated Services to the CableNet demo, is looking to HomePNA to support multiple in-home applications, including IP telephony, high-speed Internet and video games.

"This market simply won't take off until the services and devices can be easily connected with the existing home network," said Alex Dietz, senior project engineer for ADC.

However, not every vendor agrees. Several, including Motorola and Terayon Communication Systems, are placing their bets on in-home wireless connections.

Motorola, which had a networked refrigerator in its booth, showcased two technologies that will permit users to set up a home network of up to 10 PCs on a single cable Internet connection.

"Research shows that 60% of all broadband homes have multiple computers," said Sanjeev Verma, director of marketing and business development for the home networking division of Motorola's Internet and networking group. "There's no reason any longer to have the Internet connection into the home terminate at any one computer."

One of the two Motorola demo projects uses the AL 200 multiple-user DOCSIS modem to link PCs in a wireless network at the 2.4 GHz frequency. The other uses Motorola's PL 100 modem, with a standard RJ-11 phone jack, which allows a residential PC to distribute data to any other Home-PNA-enabled PC in the home at 10 Mb/s.

Security concerns are addressed by a Net address translation feature that distributes private IP addresses to each device in the home network, blocking the system from intrusion.

The systems now are in field tests with multiple systems operators that Verma would identify only as "among the top five." But tests performed by Motorola suggest that 94% of all broadband households can use them to link computers to peripherals and each other, he said. "The architectures will work for almost everyone," Verma said. "Are they universal? No. But they will be an answer for most people who want to share files or play networked games in the home."

Similarly, Terayon is relying on wireless connections to link devices.

"We're really trying to bypass the whole wiring issue," said Peter Paz, vice president of strategic marketing and business development for Terayon.