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IDC WiFi survey in homes: "not yet there"

"At the end of 2003 across Western Europe only 2.2% of homes will have an active home network." And that will represent a huge increase over the previous year. It will be a three-fold increase! IDC's report damns WiFi hype ...

The wireless LAN industry, however, is unlikely to be discouraged by this, since it implies that the current growth is set to continue, and even accelerate, for several years before reaching saturation.

The idea that there's a revolution happening in the "digital home" is premature, reports research firm IDC. It has produced a report which pours scorn on the "storm of hype" over WiFi and other Local Area Networking technologies.

"The market for home networking is on course to triple in size during 2003," said Jason Armitage, senior research analyst for IDC's European Consumer Devices and Technologies group. "But deployment remains at a very early stage by any measure."

Armitage predicts some shocking figures: even by the end of 2007, he says, home networking will have reached no more than 10% of European homes.

The problems, says Armitage, are not just the obvious ones, of persuading people to do networking in the first place - marketing. There are other major hurdles: set-up, security, and content protection - which will limit the penetration of home networking.

Games, says Armitage, will spur people to innovate. "A pressing problem for broadband homes is how to link a videogames console and PC to a broadband connection simultaneously," says IDC. "Today, the vast majority of home networks consist of a basic configuration incorporating two PCs linked to share broadband Internet access, peripherals, and multiplayer games.

A key trend from 2003 will be the increasing number of consumer electronics devices linked to a home network. But despite the growing strength of WiFi, most of these PC home networks today, use very straightforward wired Ethernet connections.