Welcoming Wi-Fi to home networks

The electronics world consists of computing devices in the PC domain, entertainment/communications devices in the CE domain and cellphones in the mobile domain. Unfortunately, these three domains do not communicate well with each other and there is no real-time support for media on existing connections. However, the world is changing and we can see that the PC, mobile and CE domains are beginning to merge as TV and mobile services extend into the home. This is creating new business and usage models in the market as well.

The prevalence of wireless technologies is one of the driving forces behind this change. While consumers have adopted Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular at a strong pace, each platform plays an important role for home and enterprise networking. For example, Wi-Fi is at a critical inflection point and it is expected that devices enabled with Wi-Fi will account for more than half of all home network connections by year end. This includes 139 million notebook PCs (assuming a 100 percent attach rate), with Asia Pacific accounting for the largest Wi-Fi market according to ABI Research.

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