High Wired Act
From CAI Common Ground By Chase Broward, President, Community Development-Technology
New or old, built from scratch or retrofitted, communities and homeowners can take advantage of technology like never before. In the not-too-distant past, there were just the telephone and basic cable. Yes, plain old telephone service and 15 or 20 TV channels, half of which you could pick up with a pair of rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna. Then came features like call waiting and speed dialing. CNN wasn’t far behind, which ushered in a whole new world of targeted cable programming, from sports to cartoons to Martha Stewart to movies... well, you get the picture.
Still later came the Smart House, the brainchild of a consortium of home-automation manufacturers who wanted to make their individual technologies work together. Companies like IBM, AMP, Leviton, and others joined forces to develop systems that would control lighting, open and close drapes, and turn appliances on and off from a control center in the home—or even over the telephone. Tying lighting controls to the motion detectors in your security system could do really cool things like turn on the lights when you walked into a room. Whether all of this automation was an idea that was ahead of its time or a case of technology looking for a market is a good question, but possibly a moot one. Why? Because the Internet has brought home technology into the mainstream and shifted the focus away from automation. Internet connectivity has now become a way of life for the majority of U.S. households that use it to manage stock portfolios, find a good movie, shop, make travel arrangements, telecommute, and do a bunch of other things. This is the age of the “information appliance.”
Killer apps Consequently, home builders and multi-family housing developers today are focusing on providing ubiquitous Internet access. Such access is supported by a telecommunications infrastructure called “structured wiring” that networks information and entertainment throughout the home. The networked home provides all family members the ability to surf the Web simultaneously over a single, high-speed Internet connection—the “killer app” of home networking. Thus, new homes today are being wired with dedicated data cabling (Category 5, Category 5e, and Category 6, if you’re really interested) and outlets to every living space in the home, even the kitchen. Enhanced coaxial cable (RG-6 quadshield) is being placed to support digital TV programming available today, as well as interactive services, like movies on demand, that are right around the corner. This isn’t wishful thinking, either. The Telecommunications Industry Association has published a new residential wiring standard (TIA570A). As a result, enhanced residential telecom wiring will be incorporated into local building codes around the country. During the interim, this standard will be the guideline for preparing homes of the future for telecommunications services.
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Minnesota Communit y Living