Wired for transmission

But attitudes are changing. Technologies such as the internet, digital television, and pcs have all made enormous advances in recent years and are now common in most homes. Recent smart home projects such as the Integer millennium house and the Laing Homes/Cicsco house in Watford have shown housing providers and consumers the benefits of connecting appliances and devices using electronic networking technology.

Housebuilders can give their homes brains by installing structured cabling, a central control unit and distribution panels. This allow residents to surf the internet, watch tv, and use pcs from anywhere in the home. They can also centrally control various other devices such as blinds, electric windows, fridges and security.

At the Integer house, Cat 5 structured cabling was used for data and telephony and CT100 for tv. Cat 5 or Cat 5e (enhanced) has a data transfer rate of 100 Mbps and is used to create Ethernet local area networks (midi-lans) around the home – it is currently the cable industry standard. For around £1000 to £1500 per unit, home network installer Info-linc will fit Cat 5e cable and 20 data points, 20 telephone points, 10 tv points and two cctv points into a new four-bed home.

A lan way to go
So far Info-linc has installed 1000 systems since it started operating 14 months ago, and it has carried out work for Laing Homes, Linden Homes, Fairview and London Town. Acting managing director Mark Butcher says that while some housebuilders are keen to install the technology others are dragging their feet because of a lack of understanding: "Some housebuilders see it as the equivalent of a kitchen top upgrade but it's not a one-off benefit – it can be utilised for many years to come. Customers will want to upgrade in five years and housebuilders will benefit when they do."

The incentive for the housebuilder is that it will receive a share of the revenue from any future sale. Each customer can buy extras for their system from the company's website, which also lets them view manuals for all the items they have specified in their system.

This is all part of a back-up service, which Butcher says is needed if installers are going to gain housebuilders' trust: "An electrician will do the job for peanuts but their system will fall down."

He claims they fail to provide the essential back-up services such as sales and marketing, branding or customer service. If these are not in place, he argues: "It will be the housebuilder who gets the angry phone call when things go wrong and they will lose confidence in the home networking industry."

Some operators are already short-changing housebuilders according to Chris White, european technologist at equipment supplier TVC. "There are suppliers who are putting in half-finished jobs. They are charging around £700 for systems that aren't terminated (lack distribution panels). It would cost the housebuilder another £700 to actually make the system internet ready," he says.

Fit for the job
Electrical contractors can do the first cabling fix, says White, but trained integrators need to terminate the system and test it to ensure it meets Cat 5e and Ethernet standards.

There is also a quality control issue says White. "Cat 5e cabling looks similar to slower Cat 3 cabling. If the electrician thinks he can save money he might install a lower specification cable."

White believes that the industry needs the equivalent of a Corgi boiler stamp for network installers to ensure high quality standards. This view is supported by Mike Perry, intelligent buildings business manager at the BRE: "There is great interest in establishing a quality assurance mark. At the moment market penetration is low and the installers can cope but when the market takes off there will need to be information and communications training courses." Info-linc's Butcher is hopeful that the BRE will help to formulate industry training and a certification scheme in the future.

Butcher would also like to see seminars for housebuilders to help them realise the technology's potential. The BRE's Perry believes momentum will build once more case studies reveal how smart technology reduces the whole life cost of homes, particularly in public sector housing. This was the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's thinking when it fitted out a terrace cottage on its New Earswick estate in York three years ago. The devices fitted included remote entry systems, automatic windows and curtains, and a self-filling bath.

Endless benefits
One area that has driven the development of smart technology is telecare, which enables the provision of health care and support services to people in their own homes via information and telecommunication systems. Intelligent sensor devices such as fall and flood detectors can be connected remotely to care centres, enabling elderly and vulnerable people to be monitored in their homes rather than in hospitals.

Structured cabling is not always the answer, though. Retro-fitting cable into existing homes is expensive and time-consuming. Many elements of home automation can be operated over power lines using protocols such as EIB and Echelon's LonWorks (both of which can be used over any communication network). Wireless technology such as Bluetooth, broadband mobile communication and DECT wireless modems also have the potential to control devices around the home.

The drawback of power line and wireless technology is that it can suffer from interference and can transfer only a limited amount of data. Multilet from Siemens is a new technology that allows 10 Mbps of data to travel in both directions down a coaxial tv distribution system.

In addition BT is planning to push its ADSL broadband internet technology through the housebuilding sector. It will be offering builders the chance to become telecommunications providers by giving them a percentage of generated revenue. With Multilet as part of the package housebuilders won't have to install Cat 5e cabling.

Housebuilders who have yet to commit to structured cabling will face some difficult decisions soon, says IT consultant Simon Hill. "They won't know which way to jump." A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on the market potential for smart homes identified lack of standards and common protocols as a major inhibitor of market development, although service providers questioned in the report believe that common standards such as the EIB European standard are now emerging.

But TVC's White says housebuilders should commit themselves to smart technology or risk being left behind by their rivals. He warns that, "If there is a recession housebuilders will have to differentiate their product if they are to sell it. For such a small investment the property becomes highly desirable."