Home Networking: A Detailed Overview Are you tired of having to compete with a family member or roommate for access to the Internet or the printer? Well, problems like this are becoming common in the United States. Currently, about 30 million households in the United States have some kind of Internet access (Jupiter Communications, 1999). High-speed Internet access is also spreading. Currently, over 1.5 million homes have cable modems or DSL, and that number is expected is grow to 9 million in 2002 (The Yankee Group). Homes that used to have little communication technology now have multiple computers, peripherals like printers and scanners, televisions, radios, stereos, DVD players, VCRs, cordless telephones, PDAs, and other electronic devices. Home networks link the many different electronic devices in a household by way of a local area network (LAN). The network can be point-to-point, such as connecting one computer to another, or point-to-multipoint where computers and other devices such as printers are connected to each other and the Internet. It is estimated that by 2002, 15.3 million households in the United States will have some kind of home networking (Jupiter Communications). Resource Sharing Home networking allows all users in the household to access the Internet and applications at the same time. In addition, files can be swapped, and peripherals such as printers and scanners can be shared. There is no longer the need to have more than one Internet access point, printer, scanner, or in many cases, software packages. Entertainment/Information Home networks enable a plethora of options for sharing entertainment and information in the home. Networked multi-user games can be played as well as PC-hosted television games. The speed of home networks is also important to consider. Most home networking solutions have speeds of at least 1 Mbps, which is enough for most everyday data transmission (but may not be enough for bandwidth-intensive applications such as full-motion video). With the development of high-speed Internet access and digital video and audio comes a need for faster networks. Several kinds of home networks can operate at speeds of 10 Mbps and up. Digital video networking, for example, requires fast data rates. DBS MPEG-2 video requires 3 Mbps and DVD requires between 3 and 8 Mbps. HDTV requires more speed than current home networks have but that should change in the future, as home networks get faster and as technology develops and adapts to new Internet appliances and digital media. Conventional Ethernet A home network using conventional Ethernet is just like the LAN at an office or school. This kind of networking requires special wiring called Category 5 wire as well as a server, hub, and/or router to direct network traffic. Each device on the network must be connected to the Ethernet. Ethernet networks have not been popular because they often require new wiring as well as a hub (a central connection point) and Ethernet add-in cards for older computers. The expense of wiring a home and the inconvenience of opening up the PC are the drawbacks to a conventional Ethernet home network. Ethernet does have a high-speed transmission rate from 10 Mbps up to 100 Mbps. Wireless If the idea of having a flexible, mobile, and cable-free home network appeals to you, then wireless home networking might be the answer. A wireless home network or LAN uses electromagnetic waves to transmit and receive data over the air. These electromagnetic waves are actually low frequency radio signals which use a portion of the spectrum called the Instrumentation, Science, and Medical (ISM) bands. These bands are around 2.4 GHz, are not currently licensed by the FCC and are used mainly for microwave ovens and cordless telephones. A wireless home network is configured with an access point that acts as a transmitter and a receiver connected to the wired network at a fixed location using a conventional Ethernet cable. The access point then transmits to end users who have wireless LAN adapters with either PC cards in notebooks, ISA or PCI cards in desktops, or fully-integrated devices. A wireless home network allows real-time instant access to the network without the computer having to be near a phone jack or power outlet. Installation is easy because there is no cable to pull as with conventional Ethernet. The devices do not have to be in line-of-sight but can be in different rooms or blocked by walls and other barriers. Finally, all of these services are secure as they use encryption technologies.