Operating a complex home network… one of the ultimate ways of geekery. I personally have been operating a home network for some time, and I have to say… if the home network is built just for you and yourself, well that’s easy. But the moment you consider using a build-out geek home network that is operating and providing a service to others, well… sometimes that raises more questions than it answers.
First of all, you have to answer to the question of the users’ willingness, or more commonly the case, lack thereof willingness to learn about how the complex network functions. It’s funny, when you think about this. This is so baseline, so fundamental of an idea, yet it’s something that many engineers blissfully overlook. The fact that you can build fancy technologies that do nice things, that people will want to use them, but they will be utmost reluctant to learn about them? How did we fail to anticipate that this would happen?
Specificaly, in the case of computer networking at home, we have a very obvious precedent in the sector: utilities. Internet has often been called “the new utility,” and telecommunications is the name of the larger game. Why do we call them utilities? Because the users have a highly utilitarian attitude toward them! “Does it have a utility?” What benefit does it provide to me? Okay, fine, can I just reap the benefits and forget about the details of it?