Communications

The family home has not escaped the information age. With the proliferation of home offices and the Internet, people are demanding the advanced communication capabilities in their homes. Computer networks, intercoms, paging systems and multi-line phone systems are just a few examples of communications equipment that have become common in today's homes.

Most home offices have internet access for their computers. For those working at home and keeping and eye on small children, home systems allow parents to listen, or even watch, the baby's room through the computer or television and answer the front door without getting our of a chair. Connections to cable or satellite television systems can bring the news to your desktop. Installing a local area network (LAN) in a home an add mobility to the list of home office worker's perks. Network connections in other areas of the house where you may want to work allow you to back-up your laptop, receive e-mail and print from anywhere in the house.  By setting up a wireless network you may even use your computer outside near the pool, in the gazebo, or just anywhere you can imagine, with blazing fast speed.

As the popularity of the Internet continues to grow exponentially, high-speed connections within the home will remain high on homeowners' communications needs. Currently, there are many ways to connect to the Internet from home with many more on the horizon. While future methods of high-speed Internet communications are uncertain, it is clear that distribution within the home will become increasingly important. To prepare, many homeowners are installing special wiring in areas where they may eventually connect to the Internet.

Multi-line phone systems are also growing in popularity. As families add computer modems, fax machines and children to their lives, they need more phone lines. Multi-line phone systems can reduce the number of lines needed by supporting several extensions on a few phone lines. For example, each person and appliance can have an extension without having 16 separate lines from the phone company. Added features like intercoms, paging, music on hold, call transfer, voicemail, even an automated attendant to answer all calls and route the call to the proper extension make any home system a sufficient as a large corporate system.

Integration of the communications systems within a home has two primary benefits. Electronic information for work or entertainment can be accessed from anywhere in the home and an integrated communication system can be used to monitor and control various aspects of the home from any location. Many theorize that access to home control and electronic information from several places within a home will become as common as multi-room access to electricity is now.