Submission by Mark Harrison - As all readers of Automated Home know, there is no substitute for the flexibility of CAT5 cabling. (See the wiring guide). However, as all homeowners know, there are some places that are hard to reach.
Wireless is the obvious alternative, but not perfect. Wireless tends to work well for connections where either latency isn't an issue, or buffering helps - moving large files between computers is a classic example of the first, and MP3 replay the second - provided you have a 5 second music buffer on your network MP3 player, it doesn't matter if the connection drops for a second and a half! Where wireless tends to run into trouble is with voice telephony - cutting out, even for a couple of seconds, midway through a phone call is more than annoying - it's enough to make the phone unusable...
