We have come a long way from the days when all we needed to do was connect two PCs together using an RS232 cable in order to share data, or to play against each other within a game of Doom! Today we want to share music and video files, share a common resource like a printer, or share our high-speed connection to the Internet. Some of this, of course, has always been possible, but in the past has been too difficult, expensive or too restrictive in bandwidth terms. People are now realising the potential of sharing their digital content on a much wider scale using the power of the Internet. Networking has moved on considerably and we are no longer limited to one or two technologies to fulfil the above needs. A whole array of both wired and wireless solutions now exists, the data rates of which range from a few hundred kilobytes of throughput, to a hundred megabytes and beyond. It is predicted that, in the future, bandwidth limitations will not be the main problem. The key issue will be the ease with which you can connect up your digital home.

Chapter Contents:

• 6.1 Home Area Networking Overview
• 6.2 The Connection Technologies
• 6.3 The Role of the Residential Gateway
• 6.4 Devices, Appliances, Services and Applications
• 6.5 Summary

Inspec keywords: home computing; peripheral interfaces; Internet; local area networks

Other keywords: Internet; RS232 cable; home area network technologies; digital content sharing; digital home

Subjects: Computer communications