Next-generation home nets could spell IT trouble

MAYNARD, MASS. - Because today's home network is built around the PC, teleworkers use many of the same applications and hardware as their in-office colleagues. But a new kind of home network is fast emerging - built around the cable TV set-top box - that could cause problems for network executives charged with supporting and securing corporate home offices.

Ucentric Systems, a software application development start-up, is one of a handful of companies working to deliver next-generation set-top boxes that will let cable service companies distribute media across networked TVs, PCs and stereos. Ucentric's client/server application framework delivers the content and a suite of entertainment and communications applications. The company's reference design, which it is licensing to hardware manufacturers, consists of a media server that attaches to the household's main cable TV set-top box. Additional devices each require a media client, which is a small external adapter. These first devices are networked using coaxial cable but only as a way to keep the initial cost low. Ucentric's platform lets vendors build in a variety of network interfaces - wired Ethernet, wireless, home phone line, power line - to transmit the data.

Ucentric's platform will let cable companies offer services based on customer demand, in bundles or à la carte, and have the ability to remotely provision new applications, or offer trial versions.

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The company has secured partnerships with big-name cable operators AT&T Broadband, Comcast and Rogers Cable, and has field-tested its service for 14 months. Pilot programs will follow by summer, with wide-scale deployment expected by year-end.

Entertainment applications will surely drive early adoption; in particular, multi-TV personal video recording (PVR), or the ability to record and stream entertainment content on more than one TV. However, Ucentric has developed a range of applications accessible from the TV and PC, which means your teleworkers soon may run additional applications on their work system - or ask permission to do so. Thus far, Ucentric has field-tested instant messaging; Web browsing; caller ID; unified messaging; e-mail; voice mail; shared Internet access; digital jukebox; PVR; and a portal application for viewing news, stocks and weather.

Top picks Participants in Ucentric’s user trial rated their interest in a range of applications. Their responses offer a glimpse into the future of home networks: • Multi-TV personal video recording is a must-have (70%). • Very satisified with the shared broadband capabilities (72%). • Caller ID on TV/PC, digital jukebox and Web surfing on TV are “very desirable” applications (50%). Back to top

Moreover, the Ucentric media server is in essence a PC home gateway, complete with LAN and WAN ports and some form of firewall, which distributes Internet access to PCs and TVs. And Ucentric says its partners are looking at building a cable modem into the set-top box.

These developments could cause some sticky situations between you and your teleworkers, and blur the lines between home office and home entertainment. If your teleworkers already have a cable broadband modem and a company-supplied router, will you let them upgrade to this next-generation set-top box/cable operator supplied home gateway? How will you secure it? Will your company pay for basic, cable modem service but not additional home entertainment services? What will company policy be when teleworkers ask to replace their existing cable setup so their families can enjoy multi-TV PVR?

And on their end, teleworkers will need to be extra vigilant in defining the boundaries of the home office, and setting security and privacy parameters, lest their kids pop into their e-mail accounts or buddy lists, or access their parents' work-related Web sites and Web-based applications from the TV as their parents do on their work PCs.