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Linksys Incorporates HomePlug Networking
mattyohe writes "It seems that Linksys is one of the first to prepare release for their ethernet router that uses the HomePlug 1.0 spec. Linksys claims the Instant Powerline EtherFast Router performs well by using the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) scheme. OFDM forms numerous signals into a single signal for transmission and then is used again to find and automatically adapt to the specific frequency combination that enables successful communication. This product currently uses 56 bit DES encryption and would be excellent for networking in the home enviroment. Never worry about not having enough rj-45 jacks at a lan party, bring some power strips!"
And, why would that be? Well, the range is an entire whopping half of a mile! I wonder if this could be done on the entire neighborhood's power grid...
-
And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
What happens if you get a major power spike? What is in place to protect my HomePlug card on my computer?
I don't exactly like the idea of feeding electricity into my computer like that.
Now lamp manufactures can make lamps with a cpu inside and we can give them a schedule for on and off.
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
I know from experience with X10 that it isn't that difficult to turn on all of the lights in your neighbor's house down the street at 2 am. Now, with Networking Over Power you can scan their network.
Or, if you like the people in your block, you can actually share bandwidth this way?
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
(2) I've always had good success with Linksys hubs, switches, and NIC's in the past; and I appreciate their low cost. I'm sure this will be a good product, too.
Now for a question: I don't fully understand how the electrical grid outside my house works, but what is to prevent my next-door neighbor from buying one of these powergrid devices and "borrowing" my bandwidth?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
It was created by an employee of Clare Micronics in his own spare time. The person who invented this technology is named Shun Ueda and is currently working for Clare Micronics on a work visa from Japan. Visit Clare Micronics' homepage at www.mxasic.com and maybe you'll be able to contact him via eMail. His technology makes every AC power connection in your house, all of which on the same grid, a viable network connection. Long distance is in mind... Mr Shun Ueda has been developing it in his free-time and is looking for someone to make the drivers. I told him to contact Mr. Brenner, but I think he may be busy at the moment and is working on something for the company in all his available hours.
Did they choose 56 bits because of export requirements?
Got friends?
Nah, you wouldn't need one of these routers in each room. The router only goes at the point where your Power-line network needs to interface with another type of network (in this case, the rj-45 network that most dsl and cable modems use). For each computer you just need a power-line network card. Granted, I have no idea on the pricing for those or for the router, but this definitely will be easier than running cat5 all over creation. Probably works better than 802.11b, especially if you've got a lot of walls.
--
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
What happens on the PC side of the question? Like, do I have to buy a device that takes up a slot internally or is USB? Or can I just plug that device into a pre-existing ethernet slot? Obviously, some type of PC->poweroutlet adapter is necessary, but where are they? [Oh, and less importantly... can I run this through my surge protector?]
IAAL,BIANLY
Is it just me, or is this product useless?
I mean, really. Your average non-savy user won't try to share a connection because they don't know it's possible. The Wireless product makers are cleaning up the partially-savy and geek markets. Hardcore geeks are wiring their houses with cat 5, etc.
Remember the telephone-over-powerline products to give you extra extensions? People just purchased cordless phones instead. Nobody bothers having a ton of wired extensions. And the network-over-a-phoneline? Just about nobody uses that one, either.
If people aren't wiring with the cables the designer intended (power on the power plug, telephone on the phone jack, network on the cat 5, cable on the coax, etc) they'll use wireless.
Gentoo Sucks
From Linksys's page (http://www.linksys.com/edu/part6.asp):
"Q. Will there be problems if I turn on or plug in devices like a power drill or hair dryer?
A. No. If the powerline characteristics change during a session, the Instant PowerLine products will sense the change and automatically adapt to provide the most reliable data path connection."
Will this "automatic adaption" interrupt data transmission? How would this affect latency?
Imagine people complaining about getting fragged by a hair dryer.
I know from experience with X10
You mean you actually clicked those pop-up ads?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Between this story and the one about setting up a dedicated server room at home, I'm thinking of tossing my PC completely and buying a used Atari 800. Well, not seriously, but it crosses my mind occasionally.
The amount of system administration required to run a PC home takes much of the fun out of computing for me. I'm a programmer and a technical kind of guy, but I really don't want to to be a sysadmin as a hobby. It's bad enough chasing down video card drivers and keeping track of all the related software incompatibilities--and having to upgrade everything every 18 months or so, even when I don't need it, as a brute force method of reducing conflicts--but having to deal with running servers and such at home is crazy. Sure, sure, the people who love recompiling kernels and running video card benchmarks and so on might not mind, but that's what those people _want_ out of a computer. Not everyone is like that.
Seriously. A PSU with built in networking... plugs into the USB headers on the motherboard.
Too sensible, it'll never happen.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
In other words, I wouldn't sweat it for audio uses. If it really bothers you, power your audio equipment through a real UPS with a lead-acid battery and inverter. That should brick-wall filter any noise from your mains.
this is silly paranoia. yeah, there are inherent potential security problems when you use shared media, even when using encryption, as you point out, but only for those who absolutely need bulletproof security, i.e. computers with trade secrets or confidential government data on them. this product is intended for home use... most of us don't really need to be concerned that someone with petaflops of computing power at hand can break our encryption schemes and access our data.
and if you live near people who would ever think of trying to DoS you to get back at you for ruining their hedge clippers, you need to move.
... with your neighbors. How long before my cable company re-writes their terms and conditions to prohibit me from connecting any device to the cable modem that also that connects to an electrical outlet ;)
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Aren't they basically low pass filters for power? Will the networking signals survive going through them?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
You're right, they shouldn't be marketing this as a secure product.
But the product is fine for most of us. For example:
- It's a good way to play Quake with your brother. And if your neighbour is savvy, he can watch.
- It's a good way to send music to a future power aware stereo.
I think there's plenty of people who should stay on their tushes and who could find good use for a technology like this.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I'd like to use this to network a small school I've been supporting. We've put a lot of work into running 10baseT cables, but haven't found a solution for getting to the other building. Wireless would be nice, but even that is still out of the budget for now. (We're talking really small school here!)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Is that they are always too expensive for the devices which could really be useful if connected, and too slow for real networking.
The nework fridge, lamps, other devices have a $5 ceiling on parts cost, and any reasonable Powerline network system generally costs a lot more than that. The OFDM based system mentioned is probably in the cable modem price range.
Doesn't mention the chipset in the release. Does anyone know if there (finally) is a consensus standard on this???
If anyone remembers the Radio Shack device that "turned your household wiring into an antenna", that's what I imagine for this technology. A smallish box with a pass-thru 3 prong AC plug, and an RJ45 on the bottom.
Plug the coverter into the wall outlet, and plug your laptop, PC, or TiVO into the RJ45 on the media converter. Really not a bad idea, with the right security. I'd certainly get it.
Intelligent Life on Earth
It's not STORM shielded, and the FBI has STORM equipment that can detect RF emissions (as low as a nanowatt in frequency!)
If the FBI is measuring frequency in nanowatts, we've got bigger problems in our educational system than I thought. Watts are a measure of power, not frequency.
Best new white rapper since Pimp Daddy Welfare... Pimp-T!
Im sure no business would ever even consider this. Think of the security implications.
You don't even need to find an open rj-45 jack on the raceway. Just an electrical outlet. Aren't those every 6 feet?
You could get on the network from an obscure maintenance room hidden from view...
From a November 6th press release it appears that Linksys will have a USB adaptor for the PC-end with an ESP of $149.99, and the router in the story has an ESP of $179.99. Looks like they're going to release a bridge as well for $149.99.
This would be ideal for my girlfriend's family's house. They have GHz cordless phones in their home, so they can't use wireless. They have a huge, huge house (it's been expanded from the original, smaller house), so ethernet just isn't a viable option for them. Consequently, I've got 5 of their computers networked and sharing a 56k, but the other 3 still have to dial out. (Thus using up the line and preventing any of the other 7 computers from being connected.) This PowerLine Router will be ideal for their setup, and I'm quite pleased to see it becoming available.
-Waldo Jaquith
If the equipment makers get on this bandwagon, it could get interesting.
Plug the equipment into the AC wall jack and poof your on the network.
Plug the game console into the wall. Poof.
Plug the MP3 component player into the wall. Poof.
Eventually all of our household equipment starts scanning, detecting and "inter-operating" with each other.
Next thing we know, everytime the mp3 player coredumps the washing machine floods the house.
Hmmmmm. On second thought...
Buy an always-on UPS. It will take the "unclean" power and re-create it for your stereo etc.
Tellyawhat: You show me any kind of high frequency getting past the 50/60Hz transformer in the audio power supply and/or the switchmode power supply secondary inductor (DC choke) and the filter caps sprinkled all over the PCB and I'll be surprised. Show the same noise appearing in the output of said audio device and I'll buy you an always-on UPS.
The kind of noise you describe getting through is such utter bullshit. The DC power supplies in practically all electronic equipment are capable of filtering this crap out and the measures for A/V devices are double. Remember that in a linear power supply you have a huge laminated-core transformer that will absorb high frequency noise as eddy current losses. In switchers you have a high-frequency (usually 60kHz and up) oscillator and the chokes and filters on the output are designed to give you as-close-to-zero ripple as possible. And after that you have high frequency, low-ESR caps across every IC and tons of filtering on the audio inputs and outputs to keep things sane.
Always-on UPSes are useful for really shitty lines and equipment which is sensitive to the fast switchover of traditional UPSes. It's once again proven that you can get superb advice from an AC.
This had to have been designed by somebody as a side-project, then was commercialized when "the higher-ups" heard of it. Really, why would you choose DES, unless you had the code already lying around, or something?
-Mark
He's not talking about coupling through the power supply. He's talking about capacitive coupling.
Yes, he has a valid concern. The power lines carry 60 HZ and a lot of harmonics of it - all low frequency stuff - plus switching noise - higher frequency stuff but more intermittent, except for commutator noise which (as you probably know from listening to AM while running an electric drill) is all over the map. Not to mention fluorescent and other arc lamps and switching power supplies - all over the ultrasonic-to-radio ranges.
The higher the frequency the easier it couples - in direct proportion. Beyond the audio range it can still cause some trouble, but not as much.
This technology is running in the tens of megabits over a noisy channel, so it will be running a goodly fraction of that in bandwidth. The question is mostly whether the LOW end is well above the audio and FM multiplex subcarrier range.
Don't bet on that. The audio range is just as useful as an equivalent bandwidth above it, so unless the designers were trying to avoid hi-fi and telephone interference they probably used it.
I have a few other concerns:
How does it behave in the presence of interference from commutator-based motors (drills, vacuum cleaners, blenders, mixers, hedge trimmers, etc.), switching power supplies (computers, peripherals, compact fluorescents), and arc lamps (standard fluorescents, high-pressure vapor)?
How does it behave in the presence of other similar devices in other houses attached to the same power transformer? (Like X10 it probably won't go THROUGH the transformer enough to notice.)?
Will you need a coupling capacitor between the two sides (or in industrial situations, the three phases) of your feed to get the other half (two-thirds) of your outlets to work?
Will the default configuration share your internet and intranet with your neighbors?
On the other hand, can you feed a neighbor deliberately, to cut a deal to share a DSL or Cable drop?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Seriously, if you want to network your house using the existing wires in your house, pnoneline networking is the way to go. It is fast - right now it has a limit of 10 mbps, but they are working on 100 mbps - the power line gets 14mbps, not too much faster (and anyway, unless you have a T1, 10mbps is plenty fast). Also, it is secure, there is no need to encrypt your data as it travels on your own private network. Also, there is no risk of power spikes damaging your hardware. And finally (and most importantly I might add), there are Linux drivers for phonline NICs (at least for the card I use, the Linksys HPN200, you can find the drivers here.)
For more more information go to www.homepna.org
You would still need a proper NIC for each machine on this network, so what does it really buy you?
It buys you not having to string cat5 through the walls to every appliance you want to automate and every room where you, the wife, or the kid has a computer or appliance you want on the LAN.
I've strung a house with RS-232, another with Cheapernet, and am building one with Cat5 preinstalled. But after wiring the kitchen in my current house I've decided that stringing Cat5 where I want it is too much work and too hazardous for my creeky old body. And I'm a strongly motivated network nerd. So what's it like for Joe Accountant?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Extremely doubtful that the signal (in usable form) can make it past the pole transformer in either direction. That's quite a security dongle.
Actually, it will probably make it to every other customer on that transformer.
All you have to worry about is your neighbor (or the EffBeeEye) running an extension ccord to a socket on the side of your house...};^)
Or picking it up off the neighbor's plugs.
In an apartment building that means after the rents a room on the same transformer (or borrows a plug from a helpful neighbor) they don't have to drill holes through the wall to tap your LAN. Or they can wire a powerline-to-disk-or-802.11 bridge into your attic fan or garage lights rather than breaking into your comp room and hotwiring your keyboard.
Any bets whether a tempest-style directional antenna and high-gain preamp can pick this up WITHOUT physically connecting to the lines?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Y'know, it's not that hard. You can just buy a moderately high end ADSL or cable modem router, and once that's set up it's more or less plug and play.
All the home powerline networking means is that the plug and play aspect is made even easier. Once the early adopters are dealt with, you can expect to find ADSL / cable routers that just plug into the power and to the cable - and that's it. Internet access to the whole house.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I have, at various times, considered getting a high-speed network connection for the grilfiend. I had two problems: first, good DSL service in her area is unavailable (distance from the CO coupled with going across the 'Hooch). So that left cable, but the single cable outlet in the apartment is diametrically across the living room (well, no, it's not a circle, but you know what I mean) from the computer.
And, of course, it being her apartment and not mine, running cat5 across the room is not an option. So I thought wireless, but I'm not willing to throw an extra $300 at the problem (yet.)
This, on the other hand, might be a solution. So my big question is: How much? When you figure that Linksys's WAP + routerator is a little less than $200 at the local Best Buy, and I can get a PCI or USB wireless card for the PC end for $100, can IP-over-110vAC really be much cheaper?
-JDF
Power line networking, of course, presents a huge security hole, but 802.11b is worse.
Hey Junks!
Thank you for giving us that insightful comment. I represent the other side of the fence.. I.E. Sure, sure, the people who love recompiling kernels and running video card benchmarks and so on might not mind
Yup I'm one of "those ppl"
From where i'm standing, this product along with the phone line networking products are for lack of a better word "GAY" The wireless stuff is cool if you don't mind the latency, but my main issue with any type of non ethernet network like this is that it's not ethernet.
Consumers like choices sure, but I don't think this is the right one. It's really not that hard to string together a ethernet network. Nor is it expensive. A box of 1000' of non plenum cat5 costs 50 bucks now, 1 box can wire up most homes.
We already have a good cheap way to network PC's why not stick with what everyone knows? I'd rather see the money thats spent on developing these goofball technologies put into reducing manufacturing costs so we can get gigabit ethernet for the price of 10/100 today. I know it's on the roadmap to eventually get that cheap, but when?
So, will this technology have any problems with devices communicating between each other if the two devices are on opposing "legs" of the split 220V line?
I.e. the line comes into your house as 220V, and is split into two 110V legs before being distributed throughout the home. Device #1 is in a circuit powered off the first 110V leg, and device #2 is on a circuit powered off the second 110V leg. Can the two devices communicate?
This is often a problem with simple X10 devices, and can require the installation of a "bridge" device to allow X10 signals to pass between the two 110V legs. Seems like powerline networking would suffer from the same problem...
This is one of the primary reasons I love Mac OS. I don't have to fight with it. There's no registry to become corrupt. No swiss-cheese web server turned on by default. No video drivers that aren't compatible with OS upgrades. Applications aren't deeply tied to each other and integrated into the operating system - in fact, parts of the operating system aren't even integrated into the operating system - so installing an app doesn't automatically overwrite a DLL file with an old version that isn't compatible with an existing app. My iMac is on its 16th month, and while I'm sure the January 7th announcements will have me drooling again, I won't feel a pressing need to upgrade for a long time to come.
Unfortunately, most people can't see past the transparent plastic, and refuse to accept anything bearing the Apple logo as a legitimate tool.
By the way, yes, I know Macs can have problems. In general the most complex issues can be resolved by a trained monkey in under two hours, and faster with an experienced human. Note that using untrained monkeys is not recommended.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Now you can steal electricity and internet access from your neighbor at the same time when you sneak that extension cord into their outdoor outlet!
Or alternatively, the FBI can install a data tap by plugging in.
very few files? how about my 1500 mp3 files? I've been ripping my cd's for a month now. I have an audiotron in the front room, a home-made mp3 player in the bedroom(made from a websurfer pro) plus my daughters pc, my pc , the main Super-power pc in the office plus my webpad (toshiba t200cs pen tablet with a 802.11 card for websurfing everywhere on my property).
I want to access my mp3's from all those devices, also my documents in my personal directory... It's nice to be able to access file X no matter where in your home you are.
Plus, I need to run that Q3 server on something so I dont get accused of cheating.
Oh, and It's not a 6Gig Athalon VXVVI with 22 terabytes of ram. It's a super slow 233 PII with 64 meg of ram. and 2 40gig hard drives.
you dont need anything past a 233 P-II for a file server.. Oh and I dont touch it, I use a hardware firewall for both the wireless and cablemodem side. so fighting with iptables is not needed.
sorry, a home server is no work at all and costs less than $300.00 ($400.00 if you have to have it rackmounted like me)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
remember this is for old houses. anyone building a new home can have it pre-wired with cat 5 for peanuts and will get a better product overall.
Basically, anyone building a new house is pretty much clueless if they dont run 1-2 cat5e or cat6 cables to every room. It costs nothing in comparison to the price of the house and eliminates future problems.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
(I'm not trying to troll, but - this person is asking for it! They're not bothering to investigate the issue and complaining about it. Laziness is one thing, but to complain about being lazy is disgusting.)
Where the fuck do you get off making such assumptions? I'm not "asking for it," and you have no idea how much time that I've spent on this. I've spent something like ten hours of my life learning how 802.11b works, planning my home network, my office network, and a downtown freenet.
Further, I don't know what makes you think that a good response to somebody having trouble with consumer networking is to tell them to go back to college and take a signals course. What the hell is that? Are we all forced to become experts in every technology that we want to make use of? I suppose that you took some biology classes before you got that goldfish, perhaps took some plumbing classes in your local community college when your sink stopped up? I imagine you're one of those jerks that "helps" Linux newbies by telling them to read the kernel code.
Don't be such a dick.
-Waldo Jaquith
You have a 2 story house. Now, you can go through the fun of running cat-5 throughout (which can be very entertaining given that the builders can do all kinds of FUN things in the floor joists, etc.) or you can use a wireless or powerline solution to bridge the two floors of your house. Wireless leaves you open to drive-by hackings. Powerline might be a good idea in this context. Another one that's a good idea would be my inlaw's property where they have a central phoneline and several buildings that have computers needing to get to the Internet. Wireless won't work because there's metal buildings all in the way- no clean line of sight pathways.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No video drivers that aren't compatible with OS upgrades.
This used to be true, back in the day before Macs had 3D accelerators in them, but no more. Macs have the same video card and drivers problems as the PC, just to a lesser extent.
Ethernet doesn't work everywhere.
3 Acre plot of land; 3-4 machines needing to be networked but with 500 foot separations and metal buildings in the way; power comes in via a central pole with no pole pigs between the house wireups.
Yes, Ethernet would be faster, but for this one, you'd have to resort to shielded cable or step down to 10-base-2 (which is getting really hard to find). Even then, you'd end up with this really iffy setup at best.
Expand your horizons at least a little bit- not everything is best served by wireline Ethernet networking.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This used to be true, back in the day before Macs had 3D accelerators in them, but no more. Macs have the same video card and drivers problems as the PC, just to a lesser extent.
If you use the video card that came with your system, it'll be fully supported by Apple, and any OS upgrade will generally include good, working drivers. I've had no problems whatsoever with the ATi Rage 128 Pro in my iMac; I can't really speak from experience about other cards and configurations. If your experience differs from mine, perhaps you could share?
(Yes I know mine's not actually a card, it's on-board.)
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Do you even read the articles you link to? That article is not about DES, it's about CSC. The last time DNet did 56-bit DES, it didn't take two months, it took one day.
DNet has done DES three times, and it's gotten significantly faster each time. Here's the times that the three DES challenges were completed:
Feb 1998: 39 days.
Jul 1998: <3 days.
Jan 1999: 22 hours.
In the July 1998 challenge, DNet was just barely beaten by EFF's "Deep Crack" machine -- DNet and Deep Crack were both running at about the same speed, but they both started at different points and Deep Crack happened to find the key first. In the January 1999 competition, Deep Crack was part of DNet, and did about half the work, so without Deep Crack it would have taken DNet up to two days to finish the job -- significantly less than the two months you cite.
DNet hasn't done DES since January of 1999. Again, the article you like to is for CSC, not DES. 56-bit CSC took about two months, 56-bit DES took about 22 hours.
Yawn.