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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wily who wrote (2356)	11/21/1998 8:08:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Wily, you're right that a similar technology is being used for home networking, although several different twists. My personal opinion is that--even at current capabilities--it's sufficient for most peoples' needs (just too pricey still). There are maybe half a dozen small companies working seriously on "pseudo-wireless" within the home. Plus a few biggies toying with it also. Until the internet as we know it "converts" into something capable of sustained multi-megabit transfers (which won't be in this infrastructure's or protocol's lifetime), there's no driving force for a higher data rate. There's also a big question of whether the average consumer has any desire for home networking at the moment. The power line methods has some serious 'convenience' advantages over other methods, but also has it's disadvantages. It's an immensely difficult adaptive signal processing problem, despite how mundane the technology may sound. The real "battle" is between wireless and powerline. Infra-red isn't really a contender. If wireless ISM-band networking products become more cost-effective and reliable, they'll win the battle (which hasn't really started yet) because they operate over a more predictable channel. There are 10 Mb/s wireless products available today (in fact over a year ago), but only claims and promises (and maybe a few controlled-environment demos) for such data rates over power lines. Hope this helps. Investment-wise, nothing I'd throw money at yet. dh P.S. I loved the line "240 volts of current" in the article, but I'm easily amused.