Need Some Help Wiring Your Home?

By Maryanne Murray Buechner

Nikki O'Neill, a plant pathologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is no slouch when it comes to computers. Nor does she shy away from home-improvement projects, having handled the electrical work for an addition to the house she shares with her husband and two children in Silver Spring, Md. But when O'Neill, 54, tried to set up a home network so that her family's four computers could share printers and Internet access, she met her match.

O'Neill says she spent maybe 30 hours reading online tutorials, consulting sales clerks, buying and installing equipment and running new cables--but finally had to call in an expert. He charged $300 to get her Ethernet-based system running--money that O'Neill ultimately was thrilled to pay. "We can walk around the house with our laptops," she says, "and wherever there's a jack, we can plug in and go online."

For a growing number of households with a high-speed Internet connection and everyone clamoring to use it--a son playing interactive games on his PC, a daughter downloading No Doubt tunes, a husband looking up recipes for ribs--networking is the way to go. "The No. 1 reason why home users are networking is to share broadband," says Chris Amori, the owner of Amori Network Solutions, based in North Potomac, Md., and the expert who came to O'Neill's rescue. In-Stat, a market-research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz., expects the number of home networks in North America to jump to 9.8 million by year-end, up from 4.2 million at the end of 2000, as broadband services become more widely available and networking products get cheaper and easier to use. But home networking is still difficult for most people to accomplish on their own.

Broadband Internet-service providers, primarily telephone and cable-TV companies, hope to nudge customers toward home networking in part to create a customer base for the broadband services they believe are their future bread and butter: video on demand, music and other services pumped in over fast pipes and distributed over a home network that connects more than just the family PCs. Plus, the isps argue, networking makes bottom-line sense for many families. "If you're trying to convince someone to buy a high-speed line for $50 or $60 a month, the idea of sharing that line makes that cost more palatable," says Kathie Hackler, an analyst for Gartner Dataquest.

But while cable and DSL (digital subscriber line) providers push broadband services and networking products and earn commissions on sales, they generally leave the heavy lifting--like customer service and support--to the product manufacturers. AT&T Broadband service reps routinely ask cable customers how many PCs they have in the house. If the answer is two or more, the rep refers them to the AT&T website attbroadband.com/homenetworking) where, if they want a home network, they can buy the necessary gear from Linksys, AT&T's partner.

Linksys processes orders, ships the goods and offers follow-up support over the phone. But customers are left to install the gear themselves. According to Linksys spokeswoman Karen Sohl, in the last three months of 2001, sales revenue increased by $12 million through the company's partnerships not only with AT&T (which has 1.4 million high-speed subscribers) but also with three other broadband providers, Adelphia Cable, Verizon and British Telecom.

Time Warner Cable (part of AOL Time Warner, which also publishes this magazine) similarly suggests that its high-speed Internet customers who are interested in networking check out a website featuring products by Sohoware, a Linksys competitor. For now, the promotion is limited to a few markets, including Wilmington, N.C., and Portland, Maine.

A few DSL service providers are more aggressive. EarthLink sells 2Wire hubs to its existing broadband customers, charging $100 for the wired version, $250 for wireless. Networking cards for each PC are $50. Customers must install the gear, but for $9.95 a month they get unlimited phone-based technical support and a promise that no matter what the trouble is--poor network connection, faulty router--EarthLink won't pass the buck. Gateway, a PC manufacturer that also sells broadband services and networking equipment, goes a step further: for $399, it will send a technician to your house to install the equipment and configure each computer (often the trickiest part of the setup process). A crash course in home networking is also included. For $100 more, you get one wireless adapter for a desktop or notebook.

It's an ambitious approach but one not likely to catch on, says Hackler. For one thing, most consumers are too price sensitive to pay the full cost of a personal visit, and companies usually have to absorb some of that cost, she says. So, short of making those house calls, how do you help the customer who runs into trouble with today's complicated "do-it-yourself" equipment? Simple: keep improving the products and provide effective remote tech support. Sohoware, for one, is working to simplify the installation process, so users won't have to configure each computer.

In the meantime, short of hiring a professional, consumers are left to consult books, websites or knowledgeable friends and neighbors. Almita and Jim Ranstrom, retirees in their 70s who live on Vashon Island near Seattle and run a computer club, refer their members to The Little Network Book by Lon Poole and John Rizzo and invite people over to look at their home network. "Some people are still intimidated by their computers," says Almita. "It's not that what you're doing is hard; it's all the jargon."

Hackler believes some consumers need not only easier installation but also a better reason to network than just sharing Net access--something as simple as connecting speakers in the bedroom to the stereo downstairs. That kind of connectivity, experts agree, is the future of the industry. Imagine that instead of routers and hubs near the computers in the den, you had a souped-up TV set-top box equipped with its own broadband Internet connection and networking capabilities--and that this "gateway" connected not just the family PCs and printers but also the stereo, dvd player and Xbox video console, even the house alarm and central air conditioning.

"As networks expand, any device in your home that has a microprocessor in it could potentially hook up to your home network, either for content delivery or home automation," says Chris Kaminski, editor and founder of HomeNetHelp.com a networking-advice website based in Ferndale, Mich. In such a setup, the computer becomes a peripheral, just one other machine being fed from the outside. And your broadband-service provider would become your source for movies, music and games. The first step is to establish standards that allow providers to deliver these services to individual homes and control how content is used and distributed throughout that home's network. A cable standard is already in the works, but it's at least a year away.

Manufacturers are already starting to promote the idea of the residential gateway and introducing devices that would take advantage of it. Sony makes a digital TV set-top box with a built-in cable modem for Cablevision. Last November Sony unveiled its new WEGA TV, which can download programs from a wireless network hub. In January, Moxi Digital, a start-up, unveiled the Moxi Media Center, a network-ready set-top box with a built-in personal video recorder (think TiVo), DVD player, MP3 jukebox and a receiver for cable or satellite TV. EchoStar is expected to be the first dealer to distribute it later this year.

While they await a critical mass of customers for these gadgets, some cable companies are trying to boost revenues by charging customers $5 to $7 a month for each additional computer that's connected to their network. That fee pays for a separate Internet protocol address (a line out to the Net) for that computer. But moves like that have prompted criticism that these cable companies are trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of their networking customers without adding any real value. Amori argues that such an approach is risky to boot, as the system could compromise security by exposing each computer to hackers. If you want to set up a network, he says, it's best to share one IP address and hide everyone behind a firewall security software program.

If you want to network, perhaps it's best just to leave your broadband provider out of it. O'Neill says her high-speed cable operator didn't offer any network support yet wanted to sell her IP addresses. "That," she says, "is a dead end." The companies that win the competition to network America's homes will be the ones that offer something truly useful or entertaining in return for all those extra charges.