My home network...

Michael Gartenberg | January 21, 2005, 11:07 AM

I've had a home network for a long time. About five years ago all it was used for was to connect to shared a net-modem to dial into the internet and then to share a broadband connection using WiFi. Today, my home has several networks that enable the following:

• delivering content to a PC from TiVo and to TiVo from a PC
• streaming TV, Music and Pictures from a media center PC to a Media Center Extender
• making phone calls over the Internet
• connecting all the various DVRs and Media Center PCs to the internet for EPG downloads
• streams music, TV, pictures and video to my PDA, laptop and Smartphone anywhere those devices have a connection using Orb
• Videoconferencing using iSite
• it still shares an internet connection among the many PCs and PDAs here

Getting all that stuff to work? Well, it wasn't simple or easy at all to get it running and to keep it up. Many of these activities are more demanding in usage models than what's in use in many business environments. As more and more stuff gets built on top of the home network, expect the situation to get worse not better.

Vendors take note - Consumers do not want a network operations center in their den, Dad doesn't want to be the CIO and Mom really doesn't want to run the help desk. This stuff has got to be made a lot more user friendly or most folks simply won't bother.

What does your home network do for you?