Each year, Parks Associates surveys installing dealers throughout the U.S. through its ongoing Channel and Consumer Monitor project, and as we launch our 2010 survey this week, we are taking a look at some of the more prominent trends over the past few years and how they are impacting the dealer market and related industries.

One significant trend has been the rising awareness of home networking, specifically no-new-wires networking technologies as valuable solutions for dealers' businesses. For example, based on our last survey, more than one-half of integrators are familiar with Wi-Fi (based on the 802.11n standard), and 19% are familiar with at least one type of powerline connectivity media (e.g., HomePlug, Powerline HD, HD-PLC).