Wiring a home for the 21st century

Home network provides multiple access points to phone,
cable TV, Internet

By Katherine Salant
Inman News Feature

As you imagine the central gathering place in your new house, you might picture your family gathering around the hearth, though the more likely spot will be in front of the television or the kitchen.

Just as important, though probably not yet an image in your minds' eye, is the technological center, the place that will connect and support your 21st century lifestyle—multiple televisions, multiple computers, a home security system, whole house audio, and, if your budget is generous, a home theater. This technological center would be a gray cabinet about the size of your electric circuit breaker box and located next to it or in your master bedroom closet.

The box contains the "hub," the point at which your cable, Internet and phone service enter your house and from which they are distributed to individual rooms. Called "structured wiring," the wired network has a "home run" configuration. That is, a separate loop of bundled wire for cable TV, phone, and Internet data transmission is made from the box to every networked outlet.

The outlets for the structured wiring network typically have four jacks, two for cable and one each for phone and data transmission. The four-jack outlets are usually referred to as "universal" or "quad" outlets by structured wiring installers, who are called "integrators."

If you're just beginning to plan your new house, you may not even know that you need the gray box and the structured wiring network, though you may be well aware that the gizmos you have now—computers, phones, televisions, and VCR's or DVD's—can be a cause of information gridlock and familial discord. For example, in the evening family members are frequently nagging the person on the computer to get off so they can check their e-mail. Or, both phone and e-mail are tied up because your teenager is Instant Messaging six or seven friends, while yakking to an eighth on the phone.

The structured wiring network can break the gridlock and ease the discord, at least over who gets to e-mail and when. Not only can you network computers so that everyone in the household can check e-mail and surf the Web sat the same time (assuming that each person has his/her own computer), you can have as many as eight separate phone lines, and you can use the phones as an internal intercom system. If you're on the second floor and need to talk to a child in the basement, you can summon her on the phone—a definite improvement on your present system of going down one flight of stairs, opening the basement door and yelling for her to come up. You can network your televisions so that you can watch a video upstairs, while another family member is watching a television program downstairs on the set with the VCR or DVD.

Add a wireless router to your hub and you can check your e-mail or surf the Web in the backyard. Though some suggest that an entire house can be networked wirelessly at less expense, wired and wireless systems are not interchangeable. The frequency of cordless phones and microwave ovens can interfere with the transmission of your wireless signal, and, at this juncture, most consumers would not be happy with the quality of the video signal transmitted over a wireless system.

Now that you're sold on the gray box and all the technology that comes with it, how do you get one in your house? The first step in planning a structured wired network is finding someone who is qualified to install your system. You need a person who is skilled in low-voltage electronics, the electronic category that includes telephones, cable television, security systems and home theaters. It is not sufficient, however, to be familiar with the installation of one or more of these systems. The integrator must have additional training to network all these systems together properly.

The manufacturers of residential structured wiring systems have been training and certifying the integrators who use their products, but consumer demand has led many unqualified integrators to enter this nascent industry. To protect homeowners and develop industrywide standards, the Computing Technology Industry Association (known as CompTIA) and the Internet Home Alliance, a cross-industry network of companies in the home technology market, jointly developed the HTI-+ certification program in 2003, An integrator with this credential is qualified to design and install a residential structured wire network with the components that most homeowners would select, including a computer network, a TV-video network, a whole house audio system, a home theater, and a remote control system that turns lights on and off and sets your thermostat.

In recruiting qualified integrators, home builders face an additional problem. They need firms that have the manpower to install hundreds to thousands of structured wiring networks a year, and Sears, Best Buy and CompUSA—firms that sell the products that homeowners will be plugging into their structured wiring networks—are gearing up to provide it.

Sears is running a pilot program for its "Connected Home" program in Florida and California and hopes to expand it next year. Best Buy is currently running a pilot program for its "Networked Home Solutions" program in the Minneapolis and Dallas markets and expects to expand it into other markets next year as well. CompUSA started its "Digital Living" program two years ago, offers it now in about 70 percent of its markets nationwide, and expects to offer it nationwide by next summer. Sears and CompUSA work with both custom home builders and large production builders, but Best Buy, as yet, only works with the large builders. Unlike the other two firms, CompUSA also installs the networks in existing houses.

Buyers will also benefit from having these large national retailers install the structured wiring networks. As Tom Watson of William Ryan Homes in Irving, Texas, observed, "The Average Joes are still scared of wiring and technical matters. When a recognized name installs the wiring, it gives them confidence that it will work as promised." Depending on the mortgage lender, pricey items such as plasma television screens can be purchased from the retailer who is working with the builder and folded into a homeowners' mortgage. All three firms offer home buyers substantial discounts on the components that homeowners can plug into their home networks, and Sears offers additional discounts in items that homeowners might purchase for the new house such as appliances. Wanting to establish on-going relationships with the homeowners, who will likely be adding components to the system in the future, each firm sends its integrators to the new house after the owners have moved in to help them set up their computer and entertainment networks.

What does the network cost? As the demand for it has increased, many home builders are now including a structured wired network in their base price. The size of the network and the number of universal outlets depends on the builder. Pulte Homes, working with Best Buy in the Minneapolis area, provides four universal outlets and two additional phone jacks. This adds about $1,000 to its base price and buyers can get additional universal outlets for $165 per outlet, said Pulte purchasing manager Bob Appert. Priest Homes in San Diego, working with CompUSA, provides a universal outlet in every room except bathrooms; for a 3,000 square-foot-house, this adds about $1,500 to the base price, said Priest executive Doug Thigpen.

As to where to locate the outlets, the most obvious places are the family room, the kitchen, a home office and the master bedroom. Installing one in the master bathroom might seem excessive, but many people like to watch television as they get ready for work in the morning or as they take a long relaxing bath at the end of the day.