What’s wrong with this picture?

• Lights are on in several rooms for various family members;
• Water is running in the kitchen for the dishwasher, in the bathroom for the shower, and on the lawn for the grass;
• Zoned air conditioning keeps the entire house efficiently comfortable;
• There’s a sign-up list at the computer where various family members wait their turn to use the Internet, the printer, the CD-ROM and the scanner.

It seems that in the 20^th century we have mastered three basic utilities -- electricity, water and HVAC. Somehow, the content of these three utilities arrives easily from the outside world to the home; is distributed around the home; is easily accessed from a light switch, a faucet, or a thermostat; and is used by adults as well as children, who pursue different activities in different rooms at the same time.

These three utilities are "networked". It seems to me that if we’re living in the Information Age, information should also be networked just as easily. We should be able to turn on "information" just as easily as we turn on a faucet. When we move in or out of a home we shouldn’t need to rip out or install wiring any more than we would rip out or install new water pipes. In other words, in the Information Age, information should be treated as the fourth utility.

Discarding Conventional Wisdom

At Barnes Wentworth, we have taken it upon ourselves to "make it so" despite conventional wisdom which says otherwise.

Conventional wisdom says installing home networks continues to be time consuming, expensive, and difficult and that it generally requires professional help (apparently either technical or psychiatric). This is because (we’re told) installing a home network requires recabling through walls, ceilings or floors, and/or installing additional wiring which results in ugly, exposed cables all over the house.

Conventional wisdom also says advancements are "coming soon" that can avoid this expensive rewiring, usually by modifying wireless technology or existing telephone/electrical wiring for home network use. These advancements and their caveats include:

• Falling prices for network cards and Ethernet hubs which work AS LONG AS the networked equipment is in the same room;
• Wireless networks for multiple rooms, HOWEVER they’ll be slow and subject to interference
• Multiple-room networks that use existing telephone or electrical wiring, HOWEVER numerous big companies will have to agree on new standards for this modified usage, and the end result will probably be unreliable.

At our company, we hate to settle for conventional wisdom in the midst of a big universe of work-arounds. As a result, we came to believe that once you consider information as a fourth utility, it’s a short leap to make all your information – not just computer networks, but all your voice, data, audio, video -- as easy and economical to access and use as electricity through a light bulb, water through a faucet and heating/air conditioning through a vent. And you don’t have to "modify" or "re-standardize" old wiring; it’s easy enough to have office-grade cabling at home.

We have begun to implement this concept with a number of patent pending, "information utility" products for commercial and residential use that are being introduced in 1998 and 1999.

LUCI™, the Local Universal Connectivity Interface, is for use in homes and in office space such as boardrooms where design considerations are important. It is also useful as method to install new data and telecommunications networks in old or landmark buildings.

LUCI™ combines customized baseboards, which run the entire perimeter of the premises, with cabling for all information (data, voice, audio and video) that is concealed behind it. The cabling terminates in a single closet, at the demarcation point for the services that are already brought to the premises, usually telephone and cable television lines.

In every room, several "information jacks" are concealed in the baseboard; these accommodate multiple Category 5 enhanced copper cables for Local Area Networks, phone, fax and Internet, and CATV cables for cable television and satellite. Audio system wiring for home entertainment centers also plugs into concealed information jacks. All these plug-ins are made parallel to the wall, not perpendicular, so furniture can be moved right up to the baseboard without leaving room for exposed wall plates. If a homeowner has existing, artistic baseboards that he or she wants to maintain we can modify them to accommodate LUCI™ connections.

From the user’s point of view, this means you can now order up service from your telephone, cable, satellite and Internet providers and ask them to deliver a single connection to one closet – no more staple gunning wires all around your house. Once connected, you can plug in your phones, televisions, computer equipment and audio systems at any jack, and you can add, move or change these appliances whenever you want to -- without professional help, and without worrying about potential new home networking standards.

Talk About High Speed

High bandwidth is an issue for home networks. Adults who are used to T1 speeds at work don’t like waiting for 28.8 modems at home. Kids have even less patience! For this reason, we certify LUCI™ installations at speeds up to 100 megabits per second. It’s then up to the homeowners to choose how fast they want to go, and the method by which to get there -- ISDN, cable modem, T1 lines, etc. LUCI™ can even interface with advanced networks that run on ATM backbones. Any hub or switch that suits your needs can be installed in your distribution closet. It doesn’t matter what method you choose to access your information or what protocols the information runs on. You are installing the equivalent of water pipes, in order to access and use your information as easily as you are access and use water.

Who Does the Installation?

By mid-1999, we expect to introduce several LUCI™ Kits for both professionals and do-it-yourselfers. The former will be available to homebuilders, carpenters and craftspeople who provide custom installations. The latter will be suitable for the skill level of someone who installs his or her own cabinets, and will be priced under $4,250 for a mid-sized home.

Conventional wisdom says someone who lacks cabling, carpentry, and electrical skills will not be able to install LUCI™ from a kit. We say, stay tuned.