routers for homes

[jefhatfield]

half of american homes have computers in them

many own cell phones and pdas

do any of you think there will ever be routers for wans (high end as in cisco) in everyday homes?

will dot.com come back big like last time?

[Rower_CPU]

Lots of people here have small home networks setup (Router/Switch/Hub).

Personally, I have a cable modem -> router -> Airport at home...for one computer:eek:, until I get a new PowerMac.

I think that home networks will start to become more common as internet connectivity becomes even more of a standard, and as the current internet generation grows older with the technology. Ethernet connections should be built into homes/apartments in the years to come, taking the place of copper telephone wiring.

[Mr. Anderson]

I too have a wireless router/4 port switch hooked up to my cable modem. I can have 255 computers hooked up to the internet in my house with the one IP address given to me by the cable company.

There will be a definite need for such devices in the future, especially with bluetooth. More and more types of machines will be built with a wireless contection. Its just a matter of time.

D

[Durandal7]

I wouldn't expect routers in the sense you're describing. I see wireless networks becoming more prevelant. Bluetooth devices will interface with the computers which will interface with Airport and so on. Routers will have little use in the home as wireless networks take off.

[G4scott]

I have a SMB broadband router with a 4 port switch built in, hooked up to a 5 port hub... My dad picked up this big 16 port hub (or was it a switch...) from his school. The company that did all of the school's networking stuff pulled out of an agreement, and took all of their stuff, but they left something behind :D

The home of the future, though, might need something like that to connect all of the smart devices... Maybe a 'central home controller' that has 16 or 24 ports to hook up things like appliances, computers, and smart stuff like that. You'd have to wire the house, unless it went wireless, though. It just all depends on what technology catches on, but I'll know that technology has advanced when I have to plug my toaster into my home network... :cool:

[Dr. Distortion]

I bought an Asante FriendlyNet router a year ago. It was quite expensive, but -as with many things- you get exactly what you pay for. Solid firewall, solid and well-configurable router and a fast 10/100 baseT switch with 200 mbit backplane.

[pgwalsh]

I have a dLink router and hub with a wireless bridge between two houses. The router at one address assigns the access points and computers on the other end. It's a nice 2.4 mb second connection. I think if I were building a home I would consider broadband router for the entire home. I imagine someday we may see an extrememly fast wireless or fiber channel going into homes. So, I can see it in the future.

[jefhatfield]

do the super high end routers, cisco, ever have a market in homes?

...or is the home market for cisco, alive once during the e-commerce from the silicon garage phenomenon during dot.com, a dead issue?

it seems like the low cost non-cisco routers will take the home market

i am just interested in selling the cisco line to homes and small businesses but the lowest cost router from cisco for the home for wan technologies is a staggering $250 us, where a workable router from linksys is less than half of that...the cisco router does more, but stuff which is currently too overblown for normal home use

does anybody think that the dot.com thing will ever be huge again???

[pgwalsh]

Cisco's not in the home market. If you compare it to Linksys, dlink, or any other company that focuses on the home market you'll notice a much easier setup for competitors. Granted the features may no be there, but the home user doesn't really need it at this point.

No, I don't think we'll see another .com boom. I think the market will improve and there will be many more .com's, but not like what we saw a few years ago. People are more skeptical. If there is to be a boom, it'll probably be in the wireless market once the 3G networks are in place. Even then you'll see corporations targeted and then the consumer market. Handheld mobile devics are going to perform most of the little tasks we use pc's for. That's a whole topic in itself.