Home Networks Coming Of Age, Says Jupiter

It is estimated that there were almost 8 million home networks in existence at the end of last year, with a majority based on wired connectivity. However, this total is expected to quadruple to more than 30 million in five years time. Consumers are being won over by a combination of compelling applications, interactive devices, falling hardware prices and easier installations.

Broadband sharing and multiple PCs are seen as key drivers of initial home networking adoption, while entertainment and media-centric applications are popular with the mainstream.

Joseph Laszlo, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, commented: “There seems like there’s an initial round of networking adoption associated with early adopters, PC-centric applications, and basically the home LAN as the value proposition. It may be that as connected consoles grow more common, and other media devices become Wi-Fi (or other network) capable, Europe and Asia may go straight to those media centric types of network.”

Growth in the use of laptop computers is helping to boost the profile of non-wire solutions (see Wireless Is Preferred Solution For Home Networkers) and Jupiter claims that by 2004, a majority of US home networks will be based on wireless technology.

US Home Network Forecasts (m)
Year	Wired Networks	Wireless Networks	Total
2002	6.1	1.7	7.8
2003	6.5	4.5	11.0
2004	6.2	8.7	14.9
2005	5.7	13.7	19.4
2006	4.9	19.1	24.0
2007	4.1	24.0	28.1
2008	3.4	28.2	31.6
Source: Jupiter Research, September 2003