Until a couple of months ago, I had not lived in a “smart home” built in the last five years. I was attracted by the availability of 1GB symmetrical fiber Internet for the same $100 that got me 500Mbps asymmetrical cable in my previous apartment. But I ran into more obstacles setting it up than a hurdler, from a missing fiber link port to my $1,000 robot vacuum that lost connection every time I tried to clean too far from the router. I was saved by Ethernet ports in every room and my off-the-shelf Asus gaming router, but I couldn't (and still can't) do anything about the Cthulhu cable monstrosity hiding behind a metal plate in my closet which drives most of my frustration.
It turns out that the “smart homes of the future” can't run on Wi-Fi alone thanks to the materials we've been using to build our homes cheaply and quickly for decades. In recent years, more engineering and architecture firms have begun to include Ethernet cabling in their construction plans, but that's as far as a home's digital infrastructure goes. What is forgotten is not only where the pre-built Internet center is located within the building, but also what materials are used for construction.
I'll use my new home as an example. It was built with an “Internet center.” Every Ethernet cable and coaxial cable that runs through the walls ends inside a corner because that corner is where the cable and fiber enter the house. The ISP-provided modem/router goes inside the corner and is then covered with a wobbly metal plate that screws to the wall at the corners.
The Information technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) noted in a recent blog post that if the United States focused a significant portion of its efforts on creating better digital infrastructure rather than “fixing” our physical infrastructure, it would result in “superior long-term economic growth, competitiveness, national security, and environmental benefits.” This includes equipping buildings and homes with wired Gigabit fiber Internet and, more importantly, considering which materials would least obstruct Wi-Fi signals.
A lot of architects, civil engineers, and project managers in Orange and Los Angeles counties in California told me the same thing: Wi-Fi-penetrating materials are generally not a consideration unless it's a large structure like a building. offices or a warehouse; Telecom technicians are then called in, but mainly to help with wiring. However, those same people told me that they have been able to significantly reduce construction costs by wiring residences for Ethernet as they build them.
The cost of common building materials such as brick, wood, drywall, plywood, concrete, metal, and acoustic ceiling panels is typically cheaper than Wi-Fi-penetrating materials, especially if they are sustainable, although the cost even of common materials has increased considerably. by 20.4 percent year-over-year as of April 2022, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). With many states in the midst of a serious housing crisis driven in part by those rising materials costs, many companies are likely to continue building to accelerate. California, for example, needs 2.5 million new affordable homesand at least 1 million of them must be for low-income families or homeless people.
As for the older buildings, a recent study published by several members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, mentions that wireless signals that operate in mmWave (millimeter wave) or high frequency bands like Verizon's 5G home Internet have worse “penetration loss” when the signal is received from outside. Depending on what wave band is used and what materials are on the outside of the building, that loss of penetration can be severe to the point that the Wi-Fi signal can only penetrate a single room.
With cost and speed reductions currently at the forefront of many construction projects, this puts the burden on the people who live there to diagnose their own Wi-Fi problems and increases the overall cost of installing Internet in a home. . And look, that's no different than what many of us have been doing for the past two decades, but not everyone has the technical know-how or the extra money to do it.
Doing your own Ethernet installation can cost several hundred dollars just for the equipment. But even if you watch a bunch of YouTube videos and are sure you can do it yourself, and you've convinced your landlord that you can (assuming he even considers the idea in the first place), that's not the same as actually doing it. The other alternative is to pay a professional thousands of dollars to wire your house with some Cat 5 cables. (Preferably better than the built-in setup in my apartment.)
I have the privilege of knowing how to solve these problems on my own largely due to my profession as a technology journalist. For others, this is a foreign language. Knowing how to set up a home Internet system is not a skill that everyone has, and the complicated steps required to do it correctly make moving to a new place more stressful, especially if you work remotely and need the Internet to earn your living. salary.
If we don't want our homes to consume Wi-Fi signals, companies will have to start absorbing the cost of choosing better Wi-Fi penetration materials, or at the very least, they will have to stop literally placing fiber hotspots. Interior walls.
