Creating a network for your home computers used to be a task best left to IT professionals and determined hobbyists who didn't mind dragging cables around a house and battling with complex hardware and software issues.

But times have changed. Today you can hook up all your household PCs to a shared broadband internet connection in just a few hours using existing telephone or power line wires or new, super-fast wireless technology.

One of the hardest decisions these days is deciding which technology to use. The options include power-line (HomePlug) and phone-line (HomePNA) which both use existing home wiring, and several types of wireless technologies including HomeRF and systems based on the 802.11b (Wi-Fi) and new, faster 802.11a (Wi-Fi5) standards (confusingly the new faster standard is designated "a" even though it follows 802.11b).

All these technologies have their advantages and disadvantages but in my experience, Wi-Fi networks are probably the best choice for most small home networks.

One of the interesting characteristics of innovative technology products is that their biggest success often comes from unexpected applications or in unexpected environments. Wireless networking is a case in point.

Early wireless networking products achieved limited success in niche markets such as hospitals and warehouses, but it was the launch of commercial products based on the IEEE 802.11b specification in 1999 that set the wireless local area network market alight.

In the three years since then, home networks based on 802.11b technology have become one of the hottest segments of the consumer IT market. Today computer stores stock Wi-Fi wireless networking products from at least a dozen leading vendors including 3Com, Agere, D-Link, Intel, Linksys, NetGear and SMC Networks.

The secret of success for Wi-Fi products in the consumer market has been their convenience, ease of use and rapidly falling prices. With a growing number of households now equipped with two or more PCs, the "killer application" has been the desire to share broadband internet access.

Wi-Fi operates at a maximum speed of 11Mbps (megabits or million bits per second) at distances from 50 to 150 feet indoors depending on construction factors, and well over 1,000 feet where there is line-of-sight outdoors. It works with Windows, Linux and Macintosh machines sending TCP/IP and other packet data as an extension to plain old Ethernet networking.

The beauty of Wi-Fi products is that most of them work straight out of the box, require no specialist knowledge or skill and do not involve tearing up floorboards or drilling though walls to install cabling. A basic network consists of plug in wireless cards for PC and laptop and a wireless "residential gateway" or "router" - a box that enables the PCs to share a dial-up, DSL or cable modem internet access.

Other hardware options include wireless USB devices that avoid the need to open up a desktop PC to install a wireless card, wireless bridges that connect a wireless network to an existing wired set-up and PDA modules that enable handheld PCs to join a wireless network.

Demand has also been boosted by plunging street prices. For example, NetGear's MA401 Wi-Fi PC Card can now be bought for less than $80 - roughly half the price a year ago - and a wireless router typically costs about $150.

Meanwhile, new, faster wireless products based on the 802.11a standard are just beginning to appear on the market capable of streaming multimedia content such as music and high quality video throughout the home.

The new 802.11a Wi-Fi5 standard supports a maximum throughput of 54Mbps although "real world" speeds of around 13Mbps are being reported - roughly double the average speed of 802.11b devices. Faster speeds translate into faster web browsing and download speeds, and the potential to send multiple video streams around an office or a home.

Unlike 802.11b products that work in the 2.4Ghz (gigahertz) radio band, 802.11a products use the 5Ghz band and should be both more secure and less liable to interference than their predecessors.

(In Europe where much of the 5Ghz band is already used, products based on another derivative standard - 802.11g - are expected to be launched later this year. These 802.11g products use the 2.4Ghz spectrum and will be backwardly compatible with 802.11b products but are slower, providing a maximum throughput of 22Mbps.)

In the US, the first products based on the new 802.11a standard include NetGear's HE102 802.11a wireless access point which recently won CNet's editor's choice award and costs around $340. PC cards are likely to cost around $140 each.

As with early 802.11b products, IT vendors expect 802.11a products to appeal initially to business users - but given the surprisingly rapid uptake of products based on the slower 11Mbs standard they could be proved wrong.

Debashis Pramanik, NetGear's chief home networking strategist, acknowledges that home users could be attracted by the higher speeds. However many may choose to wait for dual 802.11b/a products due out later this year which will be backwardly compatible with existing wireless network equipment.

Inevitably, as wireless home networking becomes mainstream in the US, the demographics of those using the technology are changing. According to a recent survey conducted by In-Stat/MDR, the high-tech research firm, nearly all segments of the population are showing increased interest in the technology, refuting the common perception that their usage is restricted to tech-savvy, early adopters.

In-Stat/MDR's report, "Networking The Joneses: Examining End-User Adoption of Home Networks," also confirms that sharing broadband internet connections is the main reason that consumers buy wireless network products. While the number of broadband users in the US grew to approximately 13m by the end of last year two vendors - Linksys and NetGear - alone shipped more than 2m cable/DSL routers in 2001.