Marry home PCs into your own network for sharing internet connections, printers, and games

By Doug Bedell / Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News
Published 01-19-1999

The clear bet at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Your home computer will soon be taking a mate, and the resulting nexus will bring digital bliss to the entire family.

All over the convention floor this month, computers were being hooked up to each other faster than Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra.

Exclaimed Sony Corporation of America chairman Howard Stringer during a keynote speech: "Whether wired or wireless, your home network will be a platform for dozens of consumer devices coexisting within the home...a home which will be as connected as any office might be today."

Maybe so. But right now it looks more like a shotgun wedding.

Phone lines, electricity lines, radio waves, coaxial cables and something called FireWire were all being touted by convention exhibitors as the simplest, best and brightest way to create home computer networks.

Numbers have shown the marketers that you're ready for this.

Computer prices have fallen so far that a second box for the kids has suddenly become affordable for many households. In fact, the research firm Dataquest recently predicted that 73 percent of the PCs bought today are destined for electronic matrimony.

By 2002, almost a third of all home computers will cost less than $700, Dataquest says. Some surveys indicate that the number of multi- PC homes is already growing faster than those with one box.

Connecting computers makes sense in a home with more than one user. Most modern computer operating systems will allow simultaneous use of a single Internet account, sparing parents from keyboard envy during homework time.

With high-speed Internet connections such as ISDN or ADSL, a home network can handle concurrent e-mail processing and Web-surfing from a host of home units with minimum performance degradation.

Beyond that, a single printer can serve the needs of an entire household. And a deluge of interactive games promises hours of fun for players competing across a home network in wild contests of Motocross and Quake.

Beginning this month, Dallas electronics stores and worldwide Internet shopping malls will offer network starter sets that use all of the methods mentioned above. Each has its drawbacks. Price swings are immense.

The dream technology - one vehicle that hooks up appliances, cable, the Internet, digital television, and CD and DVD players - still remains elusive. But the marketplace is ready if the multi-PC household is able.

Telephone lines

If there was one "Wow!" emanating from the mammoth North Convention Hall of the Consumer Electronics Show, it was probably coming from the little living room set up by computer giant Compaq.

There, two executives played an interactive game across a two- computer system they'll sell you this month for $2,478.

The bundle - "Networked Home in a Box" - includes any new Presario top-of-the-line 5600i PC equipped with Phoneline Home Networking, two 17-inch monitors, a less powerful Presario (Model 2281) desktop computer and a color inkjet printer.

"This is going to change everything," mumbled a gawker outside Compaq's staging area.

Phone line networking is drawing heavy attention from outside and within the consumer electronics industry.

In the past, connecting computers has involved running unsightly Category 5 cabling over walls and across the attic. Each network computer card ($20 and up) has had to connect to one another or an Ethernet hub ($30 or more) in order to share hard drives, applications, and print and storage devices.

The resulting gaggle of stiff, ugly wires, often called a cable monster, has been an irritating obstacle to home networking growth. Hard wire and "fast Ethernet" hubs are nice for transferring data at up to 200 megabits per second, but they're hard on decor.

Until recently, the only way around the cable monster was to use infrared devices. Those, however, must be in the same room. The signal can't go through walls.

By banding together to develop this new phone line application, a group of manufacturers now has presented the homeowner with a fairly cheap alternative. With a digital modem and high-speed Internet connection, a phone line network is capable of speeds of more than 1 megabit per second - about 20 times faster than a conventional modem.

While venerated companies like IBM have chosen to sell more complex and expandable home networking technologies directly to home builders for installation, Compaq has selected another route.

Most of its computers this year will come equipped with Ethernet or phone line networking cards. The company believes that speed improvements will soon permit television signals to be exchanged through phone lines, giving its products an edge with network-inclined buyers.

And the technology is compelling. Data can be streaming among all networked computers in the home while voice traffic continues uninterrupted on the same phone line. Voice calls aren't affected by the computer signals until modems are instructed to contact the Internet.

Elsewhere, Netgear, Intel and a phalanx of other manufacturers are rolling out upgrade packages for existing computers. Combination modem-phone networking cards can be plugged into a phone jack to link up devices.

A potential problem lurks in the curious American custom of rarely fitting living rooms with phone jacks. Multiple phone systems within the home may also present problems.

Otherwise, the packages on display at the electronics show seemed downright enticing. A company called ActionTec, for example, is selling telephone computer cards for a suggested retail price of $99. An introductory ActionLink Home Networking Kit - two cards, a multiplayer game and Internet-peripheral sharing software - retails for about $149.

ActionTec, supplier of internal modems for many Dell products, has developed an easy set-up that allows users to bypass confusing address schemes often associated with networking computers.

Its DynaNat development also searches the home's phone lines to see which might be already connected to the Internet. If another is already hooked in, it sends the second computer's signal along with it. There's no need for an additional connection. Through a special arrangement with America Online, for example, a single AOL account can serve multiple users simultaneously.

If no other computer is connected yet to the Internet, DynaNat initiates its own call to the Internet service provider, setting itself up as a server for the rest.

"The growing number of households with multiple computers, coupled with the reduction in cost of those PCs, has created a huge demand for in-home networks," said Elliot Hadaegh, ActionTec vice president of sales and marketing. "By combining the ease of use and affordability, ActionLink not only fulfills this need, it turns every homeowner into a networking expert."

Electrical lines

Several other consumer product specialists look to the electrical wall outlet as a conduit for computer-to-computer communication. You' ll still have to dial out on a phone line, of course. But the traffic inside your home will zip through the wall plates into computer parallel ports.

This is a much less crowded field, chiefly because the technology has some problems. First, electrical plugs may be everywhere in a home, but using them in a computer network runs the risk of encountering interference. Appliances and dead-end extensions are usually the culprits.

Second, security can be problematic. If not protected properly, your data can be accessed by anyone on the same neighborhood transformer.

Third, if you've automated any home appliances using X-10 devices, they won't work anymore. Data rates for these products vary. One package being demonstrated at CES, the Intelogis PassPort system, promises speeds of up to 2 mbps - fast enough for computers to share a good Internet connection, but too slow for video transfers.

On the plus side, no computer cards have to be installed when linking computers via wall outlets. And Intelogis (www.intelogis.com) is selling its product at a rock-bottom rate. The PassPort Plug-In Network - two plug-in adapters for computers, a printer adapter and software with interactive game demos - is just coming onto the market at $149, after a $50 rebate good through March 31.

At CES, another power line networker, Enikia (www.enikia.com), showed how drag-and-drop VCR programming can be used from online TV listings. It also showed viewing of real-time news from a wall display panel known as a "breakfast pad," Web-based lighting control and a security camera that can be plugged into any electrical outlet and accessed as a Web page from anywhere in the world.

Enikia contends that it can attain 10 mbps data transfers during low periods of household appliance use.

"This is not just a networking or a computing story," says Bob Dillon, Enikia co-founder and vice president of marketing. "This is an entirely new juxtaposition of historically separate technologies and industries."

Coaxial cable

Peracom (www.peracom.com) is convinced that cable Internet access will be pervasive in five years and has developed a line of products that use its trunk lines to weld the PC to television.

Essentially, the home PC takes over a channel on each cable-equipped TV set. E-mail and Web access is gained simply by punching a souped- up remote control.

Other local channels can be used to display remote camera images of doors, a baby's room or children at play on the front lawn.

Peracom plans to have its HomeConnex line on store shelves in March.

Radio frequency

This is where the big leaps are coming.

Wireless local area networks, known as LANs, are making huge strides on the back of industrial applications.

Already, strong wireless signals are used to interconnect the handheld computers of stock market traders from New York to Hong Kong.

Thus far, only a handful of new-generation wireless home products have arrived at stores. They aren't cheap. But the freedom they promise is alluring.

Using a hopping, "spread spectrum" radio wave pattern that travels 100 feet in all directions, these devices allow you to log into your own private network from the garage, patio or anywhere else you carry a laptop computer.

One of the first to market is the Symphony product line by Proxim. Its sleek black modules are as inconspicuous as their signal. Desktop and portable computers can all share the same 56K modem or access high-speed ISDN or ADSL Internet connections using a "cordless bridge."

Symphony is priced at $149 for the desktop's Cordless ISA Card, $199 for the laptop card and $299 for the cordless modem. The Cordless Ethernet Bridge will be available later this month for $399, exclusively from Proxim's web site (www.proxim.com/symphony).

Symphony has earned praise even before hitting the home consumer market. Home Office Computing Magazine has already conferred its Gold Award for the best home networking product.

FireWire and beyond

The ultimate aim of all networking devices is to control more and more household functions. None of the available technologies does it in digital like the stuff called FireWire.

This fiber-optic networking material can handle digital television pictures, high-quality audio and computer transmissions throughout the home with impressive speed. Unfortunately, it needs to be strung through the home, just like the Neanderthal Ethernet networks of today.

In his own vision, presented to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, Sony's Mr. Stringer sees the ultimate home network as incorporating a melange of technologies.

FireWire might carry the audio-visual from room to room, while wireless and high-speed telephone connectivity would interlace the computers.

"It is," he told industry leaders at the conference, "a somewhat confusing time for us all. But not nearly as confusing for us as for the consumer."

PHOTO(S: CPUs as bride and groom. (The Dallas Morning
News: Joe Stefanchik)

© 1999 The Dallas Morning News All Rights Reserved

©1998 The Dallas Morning News

 
 

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