ABSTRACT: Case Study: the Unruly Emergence of the Digital Home

Andrew Updegrove

4/03/2006
(Original Publish Date: 2006)

Although basic electrical devices like thermostats, phones and radios entered our dwellings many decades ago, the long-awaited vision of the "digital home" is only now becoming a reality. The emergence of the futuristic home, controlled by and for the fulfillment of the comfort, safety and enjoyment of its owners, has become possible only with the development of the hundreds of telecommunications, wireless, data format, networking and other standards that have been created by scores of accredited standards development organizations and unaccredited consortia, some venerable, and others new and created specifically for this purpose. An examination of how this new standards development ecosystem has evolved demonstrates how complex standards infrastructures come into existence through the reordering of relationships among existing, and the formation of new, standard setting organizations. Such a review also illustrates how participants behave when commercial opportunities are great, and the stakes for success (or failure) are high.