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ALL CHARGED UP

So will all this really come to pass? Scherf thinks some aspects of it will catch on, while others won't. "I always thought transmitting audio content throughout the house was a pretty good fit for HomePlug," he says. But he's not sure if it will replace in-house wiring for cable TV. "Coaxial cabling is fairly ubiquitous here in the States - 80 percent of homes have it. Plus, coax is robust and secure."

Broadband over Power-Line, which would provide Web access through the lines that feed your house, is also in its early stages. And, of course, there's always better and faster. Carl Mansfield, Sharp's senior manager of networking technologies, says, "I think the next part of the technology is to go to higher speeds and greater degrees of robustness. Gradually, as these systems deploy, people are expected to use them more and more, and pretty soon, 200 megabits isn't enough. If you turn back the clock five years, no one imagined we'd need the PC power we have today."

Of course, five years ago was also before the Big North American Blackout of 2003. Just sayin'.

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