Battle for the home network - which CE device has the power to win?

DSL, WiMax, LTE or whatever, when it enters the home, broadband has to be distributed from somewhere. So which device should be the gatekeeper for the home network? It was easy in the days of dial-up. The computer had a modem and home networks barely existed, so you time-shared the telephone line between voice and data communications and everything worked passably well. As long as you hadn't subscribed to call waiting.

Meantime, the TV was lord of the video world. Whether cable or broadcast, pictures came down the coax into the set and on onto the screen. Where they stopped. Or rather, were converted into coloured light by knocking photons off phosphors and into your eyeballs. Where the pictures definitely stopped.

And then things started to get complicated. Video recorders delayed the passage of photons to eyeballs. ADSL meant you could talk on the phone and check the sports results. The word multitasking entered the vocabulary of consumer as well as computer geek. But the CE world still comprised islands of connected devices. Of course, as readers will know, we long-ago entered the joined-up era of convergence but it is only recently that device manufacturers have begun to worry about their place in the connected world.

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has so far done a great job in getting its logo on a wide range of devices, providing reassurance that device A will connect with (and talk to) device B. Sony, Philips and most other major hardware companies have shared some of the device protocols so that one remote can at least turn two devices on and off. But a bigger battle looms and millions of dollars will be spent in a battle that most consumers will find hard to understand.

Take that shiny new Blu-ray player, for example. (Please - we need the sale!) It probably has a network connection on the back, which will allow the lucky owner to connect it to the internet. BD-Live features depend on persuading an increasing number of people to do just that. But do they have the cat 5 cabling necessary to make it work? And importantly, can their i- phone talk to the Blu-ray player? Don't look to the DLNA to sort that one out.

How about the new set-top box with built-in 320 GB drive, supplied with your satellite of cable subscription? Can you copy data and from the hard drive on your PC or play the stored video on your laptop when you're laid-up with the latest version of porcine or poultry flu? Or transfer the emails in your inbox to the Yahoo Widget on the TV?

This isn't a plug for the Slingbox, great device though it is, I'm simply pointing out that one or other of these electronic boxes has to take charge, or the result will be a cacophony of devices switching each other on and off and demanding priority. The ensuing chaos could make the Sorcerer's Apprentice look like the most polished System Administrator in the broom cupboard.

It's an issue that is not going to go away, as Yahoo and Intel realised when they drew up designs for TV Widgets. If the TV is going return to its primary place in the sphere of home entertainment, the connection to the world outside needs to go direct to to an in-built router in the set. That way, VoD, downloads, IP cable and all manner of other video services can be delivered straight to the screen. But what about other consumer devices with an IP address, like the games console, the mobile phone, the security system, the smart metering, the set-top box? Should they all rely on the TV? Clearly not. And the manufacturers and suppliers would not want it that way.

If the Xbox 360, the slimline PS3, the HDTV STB or any other device is going to be the main revenue earner from paid-for online services, the hardware will have to be 'friendly' to the incoming data. And that becomes harder the more devices are conected and the more diverse they become. WiFi enabled mobile phones won't let you access VOIP services, for example, or go places outside the "walled garden" authorised by the network operator. The same principle could soon be applied by cable operators who deliver IPTV services as long as you use their phone network (and pay their prices), or take advantage of high-speed internet from your power company, as long as you buy their energy and install their smart meters.

So is the answer an industrial-strength router at the interface with the world outside? It may work for the small business user but will homeowners pay for and maintain the beast? Probably not. And what are the implications for BD Live? To extract the last dollars and cents from a BD-enabled product, people who buy the disc need to go online and access the content linked to the title. Getting them to put that network plug into the back of the player is going to be an increasingly tough call unless, like mobile phone companies, an inbuilt WiFi or other network connection broadcasts its availability and connects to the world outside.

Philips understood this with their Streamium WiFi audio range but networking has to extend to every audio-visual device in the home - securely and simply. Wireless connection may have advantages for hand-held devices but there is another option, which perhaps ought to be inbuilt into every consumer electronics device in the home, from Blu-ray players to PCs, TVs and home security cameras.

Powerline would not solve every problem of CE device interconnection but it would be a major step along the road. And if you could plug just two cables into your Blu-ray player (Power and HDMI) and get all the promised functionality, surely a lot more people would be online right now...