Today's tech disappointment: wireless networking
About 10 years ago, my parents wired our house with Cat5 cable: one person in the attic, dropping lines between studs, another person at the bottom to pull the wire through the hole in the drywall. It was REALLY awesome: there was a connection in every room, much like a telephone or cable outlet, and there was a main switch/hub in the office room that connected to all the other wiring.
When we moved into the next house a couple years later, it was new construction, so the house was again wired with Cat5. I recall that there were 14 outlets on the first floor alone (living room, dining room, sunroom, kitchen, 1st-floor master suite) - including one for the refrigerator, in anticipation of a future that indeed caught up about a year ago. The router was in an upstairs closet (office room!), and at the time we just plugged in whatever cables we needed per room, which was usually office, office, my room.
I just moved into a new apartment. And by "new," I mean that it is new construction, and I am the second person to live in this unit. There are something like four telephone connections in my living room alone, and I think at least two in my bedroom. Why?! I have not had a land-line since I moved out of the dorms at my university in 2004. Much like many in my "young adult" cohort, I have been using my cell phone as my primary line since then. For about seven months, I even used just my Blackberry & its data plan as my primary internet: email, chat, Twitter, weather.
However, my relationship with a wired router has been an ongoing love affair, given that the competition - a wireless router - is still not inexpensive enough to actually be worth it. "But QC," you say, "Can't you go pick up a Linksys for like $60 retail?" Sure, if I wanted a horrible connection. Commercial-grade Cisco wireless routers start at around $300. Add to it that Windows 7 + Intel 6200 wireless card = disaster. I have sat in front of a wireless router, alternately staring it down and gazing despondently at the little aqua Aero circle, a kinder, gentler hourglass, just twirling and twirling in the system tray; all the while, my friend sat on her couch racking up a Bejeweled high score online. So, no thanks. I am very happy with the 99.99918%* uptime I get from my D-Link wired router and 25' Cat6 cables.
But why do I even need to have such a ridiculous setup, with wires everywhere? ...Because there is no consumer demand for plugging in a router to a main line, i.e., in a laundry room, that runs to a bunch of ethernet outlets in walls.
Of course, the solution to this is either of the following:
more people need to play video games on servers; or
Netflix needs to offer a better selection of HD streaming.
* - Router is 5 years old, actually used it for about 3.5 of those. It froze ONCE. I figure that it was down for about 15 minutes before I realized that it was not, for once, the cable modem that lost the connection. So, that percentage is this: =1-(100*(0.25)/(3.5*365*24))