More than half of those homes have been built in the past two years, says Kurt Scherf, vice president of research for Parks Associates, a research and consulting firm for residential technologies.  Scherf points to the numerous planned communities in the Las Vegas area, where nearly all of the homes have some advanced or "structured" wiring, as it is commonly called.  Structured wiring refers to higher-grade communications cable such as Category 5e (Cat 5e) for home automation systems and high-performance RG-6 cable for video.  A typical house has lower-grade twisted-pair wiring for telephone service and standard cable TV wiring to select rooms, in addition to electrical wiring.

Scherf believes that builders who are accepting and embracing structured wiring are doing so because they have to in order to stay competitive.  "It used to be that people looked at granite countertops and other visible features as factors when purchasing a home, but the home's wiring is becoming a deciding factor as well," he says.  "As we see households shift to more people working at home, structured wiring becomes more desirable."

From the article "Future Tense," by Steven Castle.

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