The networked home is here

ONE OF the biggest perceived markets for new Internet access technologies like Powerline is the networked home: multiple PCs in a dwelling where a host of devices from TV to fridge to microwave to alarm system are all ``net enabled''. Hitherto the preferred method to network the home was via the telephone system. In mid 1998, IT giants like Intel, IBM, Compaq and HP formed the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) to create a common standard for home networking based on telephone lines and a 1 megabits per second throughput.

Phone jacks in every room linked PCs, scanners, printers - and the television set so that a single incoming telephone line could be shared by all members of the family. And yes, one could also make simultaneous telephone calls. This was because Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology had become available. Subsequently IBM followed its own trail to the networked home offering a residential gateway or ``Home Director'', a system that could cost over 1000 dollars.

Diamond Multimedia maker of the popular MP3 Rio music player, entered the lists with its low end home networking product, HomeFree, which cost about 50 dollars per PC connection for a speed of 1.5 MBPS. Till recently these same US-based vendors neglected the Indian market since multiple PCs in the home was perceived to be a rather elitist solution. Perhaps not anymore: earlier this month a Bangalore-based family became owners of India's first ``smart'' home, having installed a home networking solution supplied by a local provider, Control Solutions. The Guruprasad home in Bangalore's Domlur suburb has its various appliances like air conditioners, heaters, geyser, linked to a security system backed by closed circuit TV and PC-controlled using ``ActiveHome'' software.

Extra investment in India for such a networking system is estimated to cost between Rs 2.5 and Rs 7.5 lakhs. For the upmarket home which may cost Rs 20 lakhs or more this may add about 10 percent to the cost of construction. Apparently there are enough well-heeled wannabe smart home owners out here for such solutions to find a market in India.Meanwhile an entire ``connected'' city is coming near Pune in Maharashtra. Called Magarpatta Cyber City (MCC), and the brainchild of construction industrialist Satish Magar, the new layout pools the ancestral holdings of 120 families. It is envisaged as a high tech, fully ``wired'' township covering 400 acres and is expected to receive its first occupants in six months time. Maybe Powerline's first Indian customer is already here!

- AP

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