LONDON-Wireless technology battles for the potentially lucrative home broadband market are heating up.
Broadband in the home will dramatically change online consumption patterns and expectations of Internet access. With high-speed access and flat-rate pricing, always-on bandwidth becomes a domestic resource akin to electricity or water. This bandwidth resource can be used by any Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled access device in a home network, including PCs, next-generation TV set-top boxes, game consoles and MP-3 players.
The problem is how? The new bottleneck is the “last meter” from the broadband pipe to the device.
Wireless technologies can enable the new broadband lifestyle. Yet, many broadband service providers (BSPs) have not yet addressed the market for home networks. In some cases, access providers even prohibit consumers from connecting more than one PC to a digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable modem connection. One example is France Telecom. Although the French telco markets Intel’s Anypoint wireless home networking kit, sharing a DSL connection is only permitted if the consumer upgrades to a more expensive multi-user or business connection.
One BSP with a more coherent wireless consumer offering is U.S.-based Earthlink. The company bundles 2wires’ HomePortal gateway, which includes IEEE 802.11b wireless connectivity, in its home networking offer.
A key concern for both service providers and consumers is which wireless technology to adopt. The home networking market has suffered from a plethora of so-called standards. Fortunately, a shake-up is beginning. Products based on the IEEE 802.11b standard dominate the wireless market. There is a sizeable and growing installed base of 802.11b equipment, often marketed under the Wi-Fi logo. Many PC manufacturers, led by Apple, Dell and Compaq, now offer Wi-Fi capability in their laptop models.
Wi-Fi faces competition in the consumer market from HomeRF, a wireless technology backed by a consortium of more than 70 companies, including Motorola, Seimens and Proxim. HomeRF is targeting PCs and other consumer equipment. Appliances, such as stereo add-ons for MP-3 playback from Simple Devices, are being developed. Feature-to-feature, Wi-Fi and HomeRF 2.0 are well matched and offer similar performance in terms of data rate and transmission range.
However, Wi-Fi looks set to win the wireless war in the home. Two recent blows to HomeRF were Intel’s decision to switch from HomeRF to 802.11b as the wireless networking standard for its next-generation Anypoint products and, more serious still, Microsoft’s announcement it will build native support for 802.11b devices into the XP operating system.
Bluetooth optimism
What about Bluetooth and its promise of the smart fridge? To date, only a handful of consumer products have been qualified, and there are concerns about incompatibility among different vendors’ products. Bluetooth’s problems reflect the developmental stage of the specification and point to limitations in the compliance testing process. The standard cannot currently compete with Wi-Fi or HomeRF for applications needing high data throughput or transmission over longer distances.
But Bluetooth’s advantage is that it is cheap to manufacture and has low power consumption, which should encourage its adoption by the mobile handheld and PC markets. Its success really depends on whether business and consumer markets respond to the new interactive possibilities the technology enables.
Overall, expect Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to co-exist; PCs and handheld devices are likely to support both specifications. Wi-Fi will dominate the workplace and home for high-speed wireless networking; Bluetooth will satisfy the need for greater mobile interactivity and ad hoc data exchange.
Wireless technologies now deliver real-world applications. Although developers of Wi-Fi, HomeRF and Bluetooth-based products do need to address quality of service, security and interoperability issues, the variety and utility of wireless products will improve quickly. Many of these applications will enable consumers to use always-on broadband connections for more than just plain-vanilla Web surfing.
