With practically every new device capable of talking to the other technology that exists in a home, the definition of home networking grows increasingly unwieldy. For dealers, this requires some careful reflection on how they can incorporate the integration of entertainment systems, computers, security, lighting, and control into their service roster while avoiding pesky technical glitches and service calls that eat into profits.

Many people, when they hear the word network, think of computer networks, Ethernet, Cat-5, wireless networks, and so on. You can very easily slide that broad stroke over and say that networking is hooking these things together to make them work together, said Bill Schafer, director of product and channel development at Crestron. Really, thats what networking is.

According to Gordon van Zuiden, president of the Los Gatos, California-based cyberManor, custom installation companies dont have much of a choice when it comes to home networking. From my perspective, its something that everyone has to do, he said. Its integral to the entertainment systems in the home. Most custom installers are in business because they are experts in high-end audio/video integration. If you dont have home networking savvy, you are not able to best implement the movement of entertainment content to digital media, and the movement of digital content to the Internet as a resource. If you dont have those two things, you are really missing out on a much greater range of entertainment content and control.

The downside is that home networking isnt always a considerable moneymaker, said Grayson Evans of The Training Dept. Inc., in Tucson, Arizona. If the custom installer wants to take on traditional home networking interconnecting to computers and computer-related devices, and allowing the homeowner easy access to the Internet, thats a pretty straightforward product category. You either do it or you dont. The only downside, and we have known this for years, is that its not a big money-maker. Its more of a service. You use this product category to leverage other things and provide on-going, recurring revenue services. There are no margins in doing it, but its something that the installer can leverage. Offering home networking to a customer, he added, might make a difference between getting the job or not.

As residential technologies become more and more IT-based, installers must employ a different approach. All of this wire has to be home run; if they dont have the knowledge of the topology of home networks, and they think if they can split it and have a daisy-chain topology, that doesnt work, van Zuiden noted, adding that the systems have become a little easier to implement over the last several years. I think most people understand whats involved in terms of Cat-5 and switches. Its gotten a lot easier over the last two years. The set-up of the hardware is a lot more straightforward, and the operating systems from Apple and Microsoft both lend th...

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