With smartphones, wireless routers, mobile broadband and WiMAX, American teenagers have elevated the humble cell phone into the ultimate fashion and life accessory.
The lucky rascals. The only fashion accessory I had in my junior high days in the 60s was a furry rabbit's foot key chain. I wore it to look cool and to rub it once in a while. Hey, that gives me an idea. Let's get Motorola to make a handset in a rabbit's foot form factor! It would fit right in with all the other far-out and nifty gadgets I saw on display at CTIA this month.
Well, now that all the teens and tweens have left the room in disgust, maybe it's a safe time to talk about a retro telecom trend that might offend their sensitive ears:
Copper LAN Home Networks Are Making a Comeback. Don't laugh. I know a Silicon Valley CEO who's building a nice business around this theme. Jeff Scroggin and his company, Plaster Networks, are championing the delivery – and monitoring – of high-speed home networks across Plain Old Electric Service (POES) copper wires.
At a time when Staples is doing a gangbusters business in wireless home routers from Cisco/Linksys and NetGear, Plaster is offering an elegant wired solution instead.
Actually it's a very straightforward concept: You plug an adapter into any electric socket near your high-speed Internet router. Then anywhere else in your house, you plug in a second, third, fourth, or Nth adapter, all of which have an Ethernet jack. And there you have it: Your home's electric system becomes your home network. The adapters all communicate with each other and deliver maximum Ethernet rates approaching 100 megabits per second, the max throughput for most home networks today.
Here's what will interest telecoms about this: the solution is generally more reliable and telco pocketbook-friendly than your average wireless LAN system. Why? Well, that's the subject of my interview with Jeff:
Dan Baker: Jeff, what's wrong with the home- or office-based wireless LAN device we've come to know and love? Why does the world need your new mousetrap?
Jeff Scroggin: Dan, it's first important to understand the market niche we fill. If you've got a home network that connects a few PCs for e-mail and Web browsing, a wireless LAN is usually your lowest cost way to go. The entry price for our powerline-based network is about $150, a price point that is certainly is not going to threaten Cisco and NetGear.
But sophisticated home networks are rapidly becoming video pipelines. You're seeing increased streaming of high-res movies and television shows from places like Hulu. Plus, a reliable home network is critical for content from IPTV services where you need to be able to watch a movie without a lot of jitter, pauses, or freezes.