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Recognizing the growing number of households with multiple computers, Bell Atlantic will test a service that will give consumers a high-speed local area network (LAN) in their home without the need for costly new wiring.

About 30 Bell Atlantic.net customers with Bell Atlantic Infospeed DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service will participate in the trial throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

The trial will enable family members and people with home offices to connect multiple PCs to the Internet simultaneously. After networking hardware is installed in their computers, participants will simply plug multiple computers into different phone jacks to network their computers together. Participants will also be able to network other equipment such as fax machines, printers and scanners.

"Home networking will put an end to family disputes about who can go online when there is only one high-speed Internet connection in a household," said Amy McIntosh, president of consumer data services for Bell Atlantic. "Consumers will be able to enjoy the high-speed access that our Infospeed DSL service affords, and they will be able to swap files between PCs, enjoy multi-player games and share additional hardware."

This revolutionary application of new technologies grew from Bell Atlantic's participation in the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA). In June, Bell Atlantic became the first regional Bell company to join HomePNA, a consortium of industry leaders committed to establishing a universal standard for high-speed home networking using existing copper phone lines.

Bell Atlantic Infospeed DSL, which is Bell Atlantic's brand name for Digital Subscriber Line technology, will allow those participating in the trial to access the Internet at speeds up to 126 times faster than that afforded by a 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) modem. The digital high-speed service provides an "always-on" link to the global Internet. By taking advantage of unused capacity available in existing telephone lines, the technology allows consumers to use a single phone line to send faxes or make phone calls while they are surfing the Internet.

HomePNA partners Tut Systems, Lynksys, 3Com and Diamond Multimedia will provide adapters, network interface cards (NICs) and other networking hardware for the trial.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:27 AM