Monday, May 19, 2008

Wee-Fi: Go, Go, Wires! Go, Go, Cablevision!

Wee-Fi: Go, Go, Wires! Go, Go, Cablevision!

OSnews explains why wiring a house still makes sense in the 21st century c.e.: A very well-reasoned article from OSnews explains why the site still backs residential wiring. They’re involved in the build-out of a Utah home partly as a technology demonstration, and they’ve put coax and Cat 5E Ethernet cable throughout, as well as conduits for future wire pulls. Fundamentally, wire has more capacity; I’d argue it does across several dimensions, too. You can run 1 Gbps raw across a Cat 5E or 6 Ethernet cable in both directions at the same time versus best performance of unidirectional nearly 100 Mbps in my testing of Draft N. But you also get switching with Ethernet—multiple simultaneous symmetrical 1 Gbps—and if you need more capacity you simply pull more wires and put in more switches. Wire is cheap and switches are now, too. It’s a good read if you’re thinking of rewiring (or unwiring) your home.

Cablevision’s already started its rollout: An observant tri-stater at the Cable Rant site spotted Cablevision installers putting up BelAir gear on their cable line. He took some photos.




Cablevision Antes up $350m for Wi-Fi Network in New York