why not wireless....
I can think of a few reasons why not wireless....
1) cost.... why push the price up and include a wireless adaptor for a device that is predominantly for watching live television signals.
2) when the boxes were put on the market, the network connection was still "unused" or "for future expantion" sowhy push up the costs for a feature that may or may not ever hapen
3) wireless is not the best for streaming video at the best of times. it is popular opinion that for streaming video a wired network is best, so why push up the price when in all probebility people will use a wired network anyway.
4) wireless encription is a nightmare, and wiresless is only secure if using wpa2 on a radius server or a very long encryption key using bothe uper and lower case letters, numbers and extended character sets and change passwords frequently . the set up of this will be very difucult with a remote control. and is likely to instigate a lot of expensive phone calls to the customer help desk by the non technical savvy ultimately pushing the price per unit up.
5) the set up of the box appears to be simple enough for anyone to install,,, why complicate it by anything more than plug a network cable in..... additional kit to convert wired networks to wireless via dongles or powerplug networking the set up and instalation is coverted by their own instalation guide and customer services. thus keeping the unit cost down....
6) not wanting to install a wired cable is not humax or any other manufactures problem, your floors and walls are your problem. why push the unit cost up for the people that are so anal that a wire showing is the worst thing ever !!!
personaly, several years back when i decides wireless networking was a nightmare and was only ever going to get worse, I installed wired network points around the house as I was redecorating. at the time, i had a xbox under the tv, so i thought to put a network point by the tv. and thinking of future expantion, i put two sockets by the tv. most rooms i have at least two network points to connect computer kit too if needed.... all wires are hidden in walls pr under flooring and connect to a 24port switch in my basement connected to a UPS..(along with a few other bits of computer kit) and a couple of servers...... in the loft is a wireless access point and in the space between the living room ceiling I have another wireless access point. laptops work perfectly, and if large files are needed to be moved, just plug in.... i also have a old 11b wireless access point set up with mac filters and with WEP encription so my daughter just has to plug it in and switch it on if she wants to play on her nintendo ds lite on wifi play....its all about advanced planning and intergrating a system that you need to live your life the way you want to... it works for me and would proberbly be a good system for most people who have more than say 3 computers in hte houshold...
penguin, because i know what i am doing !!!