The first stage for home wireless was basically proof of concept. Players on the cutting edge had multiple computers in their homes, either by virtue of a recent upgrade that relegated the old P-166 to the family room or because someone got a notebook computer at work. To share broadband Internet connections, they integrated these systems using wireless access points, residential routers with NAT and DHCP support, and cable or DSL modems. Install wireless NICs in the notebooks, and the systems are complete. This is all very workable but complex enough to discourage the masses.

The second stage involves a tighter integration of components. First, router functionality is built into the wireless access point, and the integrated device is repositioned as a consumer appliance priced at a few hundred dollars. Lucent, with its RG-1000, and Apple, with AirPort, established the benchmark, and other SOHO-oriented vendors with a strong channel presence are following suit. Broadband-service providers bundle these products to sell more services and may eventually integrate 802.11b directly into their access devices. Integration can be good if it reduces complexity.

The next stage is the integration of the wireless network with other home information and entertainment services. Integrating telephony services into the home wireless network has obvious appeal. Convergence of wireless video services is even more interesting. Using today's 11-Mbps 802.11b wireless products, we have enough bandwidth to support broadcast-quality, wireless, in-home video. That's exactly what Sony delivers with its new Airboard product, now available in Japan. Sony and Intersil, the leading purveyor of wireless silicon, have tweaked 802.11's obscure PCF (Point Coordination Function) to provide class-of-service capabilities on wireless LANs.

As exciting as these developments are, however, they are still limited. First, though 11 Mbps is more than adequate for most traditional applications, it just isn't enough to support the multiple concurrent streams of voice, video and data that home users will demand. Emerging 5-GHz wireless LAN products will offer five times the bandwidth of today's offerings, providing the headroom necessary to deliver these converged services.

Unfortunately, more bandwidth is not enough. Delivering enhanced QoS (Quality of Service) capabilities is critical to the long-term viability of the 802.11 wireless standards, and unlike what we saw with the original 802.11 standard, which took seven years to develop, QoS must be delivered quickly. Advocates of HiperLAN2, which was designed with QoS capabilities, are ready to fill the void if given the opportunity.

These changes in home wireless networking will have a profound impact on the way business uses the technology. In the wireless silicon market, TI and Intel are poised to become major suppliers, providing worthy competition to Intersil and Lucent. If the home wireless market really takes off, volume and competition will drive prices down dramatically, following a trajectory similar to that in the consumer electronics market. Once wireless is ubiquitous in the home, wireless enterprise networks are sure to follow.