Linking Up Home PCs
Is Dubious and Messy
By WALT MOSSBERG
WHENEVER the computer industry introduces a supposedly simple, purportedly must-have product, smart consumers should grow suspicious. This is an industry with a great hype machine but almost no clue about what mainstream users consider simple and what they really need. So skepticism is in order when considering the industry's latest "hot" product: home-networking systems, which let you link two or more home personal computers.
One such product is Intel's AnyPoint Home Network, which the company claims is "quick and easy" to set up. AnyPoint, which costs between $79 and $99 per PC, supposedly creates a network of PCs in your home using the existing telephone lines in your walls, without interfering with voice or modem phone calls.
Last weekend, I tried to set up a three-computer AnyPoint network in my home, following Intel's instructions to the letter. What I got instead was a two-computer network, with one PC left out of the loop. Not only that, but the networked machines lost the ability to print. Still, at least I'm now part of the hot new trend.
DETAILS OF MY five-hour networking project are below. But first, let's examine the reasons for networking home PCs. Intel cites several. You can share a single printer among multiple machines. You can swap files stored in different rooms. You can play certain network-enabled games on multiple PCs. And you can share a single, costly high-speed Internet connection, such as a cable modem.
However, most of these reasons are weak. Printers are now so cheap it's not worth the effort to share one. When you want to move a file from one PC to another, carrying a disk from room to room is quite easy, except perhaps in the giant mansions occupied by the high-tech tycoons pushing home networking. The ability to play multiplayer games at home is a better reason for a home network, but it applies only in the minority of homes where games are such a serious pastime that it justifies the hassle of building a network.
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If you have a question you want answered, or any other comment or suggestion about Walter S. Mossberg's column, please send e-mail to mossberg@wsj.com.
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Only the last reason, the sharing of a cable modem, makes much sense to me. Such connections are incredibly convenient and of great appeal to all family members. But they are usually so costly and hard to install that they reside in only one room. If they could be shared, a family might be able to do without a second phone line.
AnyPoint comes in two versions. One requires the installation of an internal card in the PC, something I believe most users won't and shouldn't do. So I tested the other, which hooks up via the printer port on the back of a PC, and then provides a replacement port for your printer on the back of the gray plastic AnyPoint box.
Intel urges journalists to "look at the product through the eyes of the novice user." So I did. In my test, the main PC, or the "server," was a Dell in my study with a cable modem attached. There were two satellite PCs, or "clients." One was my wife's Compaq desktop in our bedroom; the other was a Compaq laptop placed in the kitchen for this test.
I carefully followed the instructions in Intel's well-written manuals, attaching each AnyPoint box to a PC and then plugging each box into a phone jack. All of the networked PCs must be plugged into jacks on the same phone line, even if you have multiple lines in a house. Mine were. Then I installed Intel's three pieces of software. This went OK, with only a little confusion but no error messages.
And when I was done -- voila! The kitchen laptop couldn't be detected by the network. I tried every troubleshooting tip in the manual, and even temporarily unplugged various phones and modems. Hours later, nothing I tried had worked.
Then I discovered that neither my wife's computer nor mine could print anymore on the two very common Hewlett-Packard DeskJet printers we use. Intel had admitted that some minor printing features might be lost. But in our house, both printers became totally inoperable once AnyPoint was installed. I managed to get them working again by running an obscure printer configuration program few mainstream users would know about.
Even when AnyPoint operates normally, Intel concedes, it disables some other important functions, like the energy-saving sleep mode on PCs and the ability to use Zip drives and other devices, like scanners, that connect to the printer port.
IN THE END, my wife and I were able to share the cable modem, with no noticeable degradation in modem speed, even when we were on the Net simultaneously. That was great, but it required herculean efforts.
Want to Set Up a Home Network? Better Get Teenage Tech Support
Lest you think my problems were unique, consider this. A colleague labored for 12 hours last week to set up a similar three-computer AnyPoint network. First he had to install a new computer in one room. Then AnyPoint knocked out his cable modem capability altogether. When he got that back, the modem wouldn't work over the network. He got the whole thing working properly only when a teenager told him about an arcane technical fix buried in Windows.
Intel plans a simpler version of AnyPoint later this year, which will replace the printer-port connections with the easier USB type of connector. That may help. But for now, this product is much too hard for mainstream users to install. On Planet Intel, it may be "quick and easy" to set up. But here on Planet Earth, it's a huge hassle.
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