If it's up to the Federal Communication Commission, your "smart" home could be a little, well, retarded.

The Home Automation Association is lobbying the FCC to improve it's new minimum requirements for inside telephone wiring so home owners can pipe in all the broadband data they need.

The FCC's new Order FCC 99-405, effective later this year, requires only Category 3 wiring quality standards for inside telephone wiring.

Phone wiring systems that use Category 5 wiring offer the extra bandwidth necessary to pipe digital television signals and to efficiently run a "smart home".

Smart homes contain electronic devices and "smart appliances" programmed to perform tasks automatically when they're triggered by motion, sound, time, touch or temperature cues.

Creating a home with brains not only makes your home more efficient and productive, but also adds value when it's time to sell.

Digital remodeling professionals, called electronic architects recommend Category 5 wiring. Your telephone service provider will be able to tell you if your home's wiring is at the Category 5 level.

Category 5 moves voice and data at a minimum of 100 megabytes per second and supports local area networks (LANs), providing the ability to use a home printer from the kitchen laptop, for instance. It also serves as the data line for digital television. Category 3, on the other hand, offers speeds of up to only 10 megabytes per second.

Installing Category 5 wiring in new construction costs pennies more than installing Category 3 wiring, but trying to retrofit the faster wires can be costly, depending upon the materials and the structure and design of your home.

Fortunately, the FCC's order is merely a minimum standard and builders can install whatever the home buyer wants if the builder provides a Category 5 option. The association is concerned, however, that builders may skimp on wiring and force new home owners into a costly upgrade after they buy.

"In the same way that railroads and interstate highways were developed to connect people and advance commerce, building America's electronic infrastructure, especially home wiring, enhances our economic well being, improves our ability to communicate and increases the safety and security of hour homes," says William Lane, chairman of the Home Automation Associations, Wiring America's Homes campaign.

"This action by the FCC is a positive first step, however the FCC needs to upgrade the standards to Category 5, enabling home owners to make the most of new and emerging home automation and communications technologies," Lane added.

If you need to upgrade your home's wiring service, be aware that Category 5 wiring, available at hardware or electronics retailers, pumps digitized data at maximum speeds only when it's part of a structured wired system.

That is, outlets, ports or jacks must each receive a dedicated line back to the service box. Spliced, extended and otherwise shared lines siphon speed.

Published: April 7, 2000

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.