"Wired for Life," the name of this magazine section, is a fitting description of the exteriors of many homes I've worked on.

Painting a friend's house the other day, I marveled at the miles of cable straddling the back wall. I think the best way to improve a house's appearance is to remove or hide exterior cabling.

In my current home, coax cable had been strung over the roof and along the wall of the front of the townhouse. I solved that problem with a sharp pair of wire cutters and a dab of caulk over the hole.

Wireless technology has solved the need for excessive cabling both inside and outside the house. Cordless phones have been around since the early 1980s, wireless computer networking has finally arrived to acceptable performance standards, and you can even get wireless cable transmitters for the home.

Yet wired connections are still better-performing, more secure and less complicated to maintain.

It is interesting to see show a $75 cell phone can last for three years, but a $40 wall phone will hang in your kitchen for 20 years!

In all my years as a network administrator, I encountered more problems with networking in the past 12 months than I did with wired communications in the last 14.

Wiring your house is often too difficult, however, because homes are typically not designed for wiring renovations unless you tear out walls, drill holes between floors and walls, or install conduit along interior walls. It takes considerable creativity and patience to add wiring to a home.

How can you design a home for today's and tomorrow's wiring needs? The most basic element of good design is found in most commercial sites - a demarcation point.

Ideally, cable can be pulled into a location in the garage or basement from utility providers. The cables are punched into a patch panel, the cable modem and cable TV interface are attached. From there, you can run along conduits network, coax and telephone cable to various parts of the house.

Cable runs can be designed into homes for future expansion, including the addition of power. This demarcation point also can contain a network router, power backup and surge protection. Telephone switches are placed on demarcation boards in larger homes.

Alas, if you already own an older home you will find the above suggestion difficult, if not impossible, to devise. But with some thought and patience, you can construct a solution as you make improvements to the house. Browse through home intelligence Web sites (www.x10.com) and research the line of products you find interesting. Survey electricians, computer and entertainment center consultants to see what they could offer. I often find free advice and new ideas. Electricians, especially, have significantly expanded their expertise to cover networking and home intelligence technologies.

To a demarcation point can be added a computer, Tivo server, home control system and security camera controls. This may sound like a lot, but that is the point. Well-designed home networking means you can easily expand service and maintain the technology, and your home can be more marketable.