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Non-Invasive Networking - HomePNA vs. HomePlug?
zonker asks: "I live in a relatively new, moderately sized home that doesn't have conduit in the walls, nor does it have extra wires for networking. I am investigating getting a broadband connection, but first I have to decide how I will connect the network for the 6 computers in the house. As per the owners, I am not allowed to drill holes in the walls, and as per my girlfriend, I am not allowed to run Cat5 through the halls, so I am looking at my alternatives: wireless, HomePNA, and HomePlug. I'm afraid the house is a little too big for wireless without getting expensive, so it looks like either phonewire, or electric-wire. I've done some initial googling for people's opinions of these products and my quick findings where that magazine and website reviews seem to be favorable of some of them, while personal accounts seem to vary wildly. What solutions have worked for you? Are these things ready for primetime? Or should I suck it up and buy a few WAP's to extend the radius of a wireless network?"
Wireless has a range of 100 meters, and if you place the access point in the middle of the house, the range between the farthest computers is 200 meters... It's impossible that your house is more than 200 meters accross unless it cost you several million dollars.
Regards, Guspaz.
What works for me is having a computer 5 feet away connected to the network with a fifty foot cable. That can get tangles in it though.
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
linksys
Let me get this straight? She says that you can't run Cat5 along the hall baseboards?
Dump her and buy yourself a spool. You'll end up better off in the end.
In situations like this, the best solution is the bitchy-girlfriend-less network, rather than the wireless network.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
Drill some holes. Who cares what the agreement says; a little Cat5 goes a long way! It isn't that hard to patch holes! Hire a general contractor with a clue, and you would be amazed what they can do in a day. Just think about it in a way to make the thing flexible. If you have nice coverplates that match everything else, the owner will never notice the improvement you have made.
Plan the infrastructure so you can put a few WAP's in places that would improve the overall experience, and deal with contingencies. You don't have to put in all the WAP's now... maybe one in the living room, one in the bedroom.
If it is a place you are going to stay for a few years, you will outgrow what any of the 1Mb links will offer. Save yourself the hassle and do it right the first time!
has to be the best answer. For a medium sized home, range should not be an issue, and many 802.11b basestations come with a router incorperated so that the broadband connection should be smooth. Many will say 11mbit isn't good enough, but for the requirements, and relatively low cost, Wi-Fi is the way to go
Yawn.
Transferring data across the electricty cables is slow. Rates are limited to 60bps (50 in Europe) because of the frequency of the AC.
I recommend going wireless. Not only is it easy, it's Ethernet, and your OS likes that. You'll also like the little access point that also doubles as a firewall. Plus, the roaming with the laptop is sweet.
If you're worried about bandwidth, get an access point/router with two antennas. That will allow more devices to connect with greater bandwidth.
There's nothing better than getting 11Mbps with zero wire hassle.
The answer in a moment...
From Linksys' site:
"The Linksys Instant PowerLine? EtherFast®10/100 Bridge offers a complete Internet connection solution for your home powerline network. The PowerLine Bridge makes sharing your broadband access easier than ever. Build a strong and simple-to-use home network by taking advantage of the most pervasive home networking medium - powerlines.
The PowerLine Bridge is ideal for users who already have a router. It can be plugged into an Ethernet port on a router to equip a network with powerline capabilities and take advantage of the router's features. The PowerLine Bridge can also plug directly into a cable or DSL modem to allow Internet access and data transfer rates up to 14Mbps over home powerlines."
I've had nothing but trouble with the PhoneLine networking. It would go in and out sporadically without any good reason. I can say though that it is about the only thing you can fix by Singing.... Just picked up a phone on the line they were on and started to sing abit and BAM, the conection was present again. It would of course go out again in like 10 minutes, so we just replaced all the phone wiring in the house with Cat5 using the 2 free pairs. And what is with this house that you can't use Wireless? are all the walls lined with metal or something? And on the note of PhoneLine, how good is the phone wiring in the house? PowerLine, Linksys says it's shit can do 12-14mbps, but I've never really heard of anyone using powerline networking for anything other then Home Automation. Also if you are using DSL I think (NOT SURE) that you can just forget phoneline, they I belive will interfere.
(Score:0, Interesting)
I would recommend you go with a wireless/carrier solution only if you have no other choice. Run UTP out the windows, under the carpets, wherever. A wired connection will be orders of magnitude superior to any other solution. Those other methods not only result in a slow link, they often wind up slowing the rest of your network down. I tried wireless and it's quite annoying.
I know of a friend who has had a phone line network for some years. Yes, there is a limited bandwitdh (about 10mbps), but that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem this family had was cards getting burned out. Within the past year, there network has been down because the cards have burned out. You may be able to replace cards faster than they can, but you may still have that problem. I don't know of anyone that use power lines for a network, so I don't know of any of the specs.
I would recommend going wireless, buy some coax, and some pringles, and then have small relay station in the corner of the hallway. No holes needed. You'll just have to have the coax go in between the door and the door post. You won't sacrifice too much speed either. If you use a Y-jack, you should have a problem having relays to pass the signal.
I use HomePNA for the network I have in my house. It works great, but I have had a few problems with it. The major one is that at 8:30 every night until 1:00 am, the phone company aparently sends out signals on the same band as the HomePNA signals. The connection instantly gets periods of 100% packet loss and very freuently cuts out. Be wary of that, its extremely annoying. If you want my opinion, HomePNA and HomePlug just plain suck. Go for wireless if you can't run Cat5, its your best bet.
I don't know what you people are talking about who think HPNA sucks. You must be idiots or something (I'm done insulting now). Seriously though, Our house is too big to do wireless... why? Wireless kinda sucks. In a large house with 3 levels and a lot of spread out...ness, you have to go with a hard line for stability. For about $250 we set up our entire house for a high-speed network. And you can't beat that with anything unless you have Cat5 running through your walls already. Thank you creators of HPNA 2.0 (1.0 and 1.1 sucked) for making my life so much easier! .: Ryan "Blackguard" Shwayder .: The GameWatchers Network .: http://www.gamewatchers.net/
Just because of price alone. You can get HomePNA 2.0 cards for $10 (just an example, do a search on PriceWatch for more), they're PCI, and they all use the same Broadcom chip so they're essentially the same card. HomePlug is A LOT more expensive at the moment and only seems to be available in USB right now. The other nice thing about HomePNA is that you can simply daisy-chain a bunch of computers together using simple phone cable, without needing a hub or anything, just like in the old coax days. I've heard some people having problems when running the network over their primary phone line (although many others haven't had problems). In that case simply use the other pair of wires for line 2--even most older homes are wired for two lines. Heck, just get two cards and try it out--if it works fine for you, you saved yourself a bunch of dough. If it doesn't, you're only out $20 (for two cards).
I know where all the holes in the wall are in my house, and would damn well notice a new one. But I suppose it depends on how observant the owner is. But in any case, all it takes to repair a reasonably-sized hole in the wall right before you move out is fiberglass tape, some joint compound, paint, and maybe a can of spray-on texturizer.
What're they gonna do, anyway? Knock a twenty off your deposit?
We use HPNA 2.0 on the second wire pair in our apartment and are happy with it, though we did have the occasional glitch when we were using a second phone line for a modem -- nowdays we use a cable modem and 2wire's HPNA router instead.
Two possible gotchas: It seems like HPNA gear is becoming harder to find, so I don't know how much longer it will be supported; I also don't know if there is Linux support for the chipset.
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
I tried to run a wireless network in my house for awhile, and I can tell you that unless you live in a wharehouse or have those japanese-style paper walls, wireless is worthless.
First off, 802.11b uses the 2.4 GHz band, the same as the newer wireless phones and MICROWAVE OVENS. (as well as incedental radiation from some flourescent lights). 2.4 GHz is also the approximate resonating frequency of water molecules (hence its utilization in microwave ovens)so high humidity, waterpipes, and PEOPLE between the antennas tend to f0x0r up the reception.
I dropped WAAY too much money on a Linksys setup, and I hated it. Even with the newest drivers and hardware flash updates it was almost impossible to get the damn thing to transmit through more than one exterior wall or 2 interior walls. And even when I could make it work I got slower transfer rates than RFC1149.
Two tech calls to Linksys (at 45 min apice)later I finally broke down and dropped cat5. (I also learned that Linksys considers 802.11b to be a "Line of Sight" protocol.)
I faced similar restrictions in hole-drilling, but generally, with a little work (and a little sense) one can overcome such restrictions. Check your phone and cable drops. These do not have to be stapled in to meet code, so you can tag a picec of cat5 on and just pull it through into either your attic or crawlspace and BAM! You could even spring for those cool Leviton integrated faceplates and jack phone and data out on the same plate. Same goes for cable.
Or, as a last resort, talk to your landlord, tell him you'll pay to add value to his property. They like that.
If you absolutley MUST go wireless, though, hit wirelessanarchy.com. The pringles can antenna works pretty well sometimes. But Linksys uses proprietary antenna connectors-- gender inverted TNC and SMA connectors. Theyre a bitch to get a hold of.
You only need to get a shot in the beanbag once to appreciate _KevlarBoxers_
I used HomePNA for quite a while. I found that there can be problems if you mix 1-megabit cards with 10-megabit cards. Besides that, they were fine, working just like regular ethernet. They worked alongside DSL on the same line.
But you won't know how well it works for you until you try it.
I realize you've said this isn't an option, but really, drilling holes isn't such a big deal. A bit of plaster & paint is all it takes to cover holes up, and who knows, the owners may even like the improvement to their home!
In my apartment, I removed the baseboards, and snaked cable behind it, the heating elements along the wall, and for the living room -> bedroom, drilled a hole. That's not the least of it, though, as I've hung multiple shelves on the wall, and painted the entire place to colors that I enjoy more. (and yes, the landlord has seen/approved of all of it, he just asks that the walls be returned white when I move out, and the holes get patched up -- which I have full intention to do)
My suggestion is to check the lease, most permit "hanging items from the plaster" of varying degrees, and putting a tiny hole with a wallplate on either side really isn't any worse than a hole from a picture.
Besides, what will the owner do, kick you out? A low-voltage wire through a wall is hardly a capitol offense. Just be neat about it.
-anonymous for various reasons
The owner is effectively my father in law, and he is looking to put the house on the market soon. He doesn't want to change things in the house, so the issue is kind of closed in that respect. BTW, he designed the house so he knows the layout pretty damned well (about 12 years ago before home-networking was popular). So as much as I'd love to go ahead and run the wire, it ain't gonna happen.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
if you arn't allowed to drill holes, why don't you use the ones that are already in the walls? I'm sure you can get some dual data/power wall plates and just do it like that.
We are all aware of LinkSys. Your point?
There's a whole lot of anti HomePNA posts here, but I've had no problems with it whatsoever, beyond the previous unavailability of Linux drivers for the cards.
For a standard home network, the bandwidth is more than enough to keep you satisfied. The only downside is that you're screwed (as in 'cables through the halls') if you later want a computer in a room without a phone extension. If that might be the case, go wireless, but as it is, the phone line network is far cheaper (and secure, too, unlike wireless)
No disrespect intended, but you live in this house, you know the layout, you know your limitations, yet you ask this on /.? No one here is going to help you any more than a 5 minute google search. You know you are going wireless! Pick one and do something for yourself please.
If the house is going on the market soon, I'd say there's no question that you should go with wireless... If you're going to be moving out in a matter of months, your new investment will move with you, without any effort.
alternately, if your house is carpeted, it is very easy to put cable under carpet, and is unnoticable if put in the right spots (i.e. following the edges of walls). just dont place the cable straight across rooms, otherwise you can feel the cable when you walk on it.
if the carpet is not an option, you might want to check out the raceways someone suggested. personally, i dont think these look all that good, and they would be too expensive for me, but its an option.
also, check into painting your cables, and running them along non-noticable places. if you match the color right, you can eaisly place cable along the little thing of wood that sticks out that seperates the room from the trim below the ceiling. that is, if you have that to begin with; some people do, some dont. if you run cables along walls, though, make sure to match colors just right, attach them tightly, follow corners and unnoticable places, and make sure there is no slack. otherwise, it looks kinda shoddy.
i wouldnt suggest using the data-over-power or data-over-phone routes, personally. ive heard only mixed reviews about these. try them if youd like, though.
your last option is wireless, which is nice in the fact that you can take it with you when you move. too slow of data rates for me, but its damned convinent. a hassle to set it up, watching out for interference and everything, though.
the option id favor the most would be convincing the father in law to let you run cables through the walls. use dual faceplates, make them look nice, and cover all the costs yourself. i dont see how this would decrease the value of the home, and might even raise is slightly. if i think of anything else, though, ill post it.
as to all the "this topic is boring and i dont want to help out" people, why do you even take the time to post and bitch about it? just dont read the discussion. i dont bitch that some TV station is playing a boring show, i just change the channel. same concept.
yeah, and netgear, proxim, hp... so?
the poster already linked to plenty of manufacturers of these products. he's asking which solution is best, not which brand...
Run it down the furnace ducts. A friend of mine has done that to the last 3 houses where he's lived. Just make sure to use plenum-rated Cat-5 and route it out of the ducts at an unobtrusive location several feet from the furnace's heating element.
Pry an opening in a duct in the furnace room, route the cables out of it to your hub, cover the hole temporarily with a strip of duct tape. When you move out, just yank the cables out of the duct and cover the hole with another piece of duct tape. The owner will never know.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
I work at a WISP (wireles ISP) We use ORINoCO (Lucent in a prety box)equipment and have really good results. As for the whole line of sight idea; it is true, but only if you are putting up a link that exceeds two blocks. If you buy a decent AP (linksys is horrible) and some standard Lucent(Linux waveLAN ) pcmcia cards, and use pci converter cards, you will have no problem with setting up a home network. IF you really want to work some magic, use the ad hoc modes, and have one boxen (preferably Linux) as your gate way. That way, all of your computers feed each other bandwidth.
For some reason I don't like the idea of HPNA, or using my electrical outlets to do networking. The best bet would be CAT 5 or WiFi.
I have the above configuration working at several businesses and at my home, feel free to go to the website and find my E-Mail and I can answer some of your questions on setting something like this up.
People usually don't say what they will do, and rarely do what they say.
HPNA is good, but not fast. 802.11b works well, but is definately not fast. I just switched from 802.11b to 802.11a and the speed increase is GREAT. I can now stream divx movies across the wireless with no slowdown or chop.
The cost of the APs is already very reasonable and definately worth going with over 802.11b.
I tried to find some info on this, but no success.
Has anyone tried running Ethernet over conductive traces painted on a wall? I know it wouldn't be optimal, as the capacitance due to the twisted pairs would be difficult to match. But for a few dozen feet, perhaps it would work. I imagine the paint would be more resistive than copper wire, and of course more susceptible to interference (unshielded, unless six layers of conductive and regular paint seems like a good idea).
A person could do this in two ways. One requires a lot of conductive pens and a steady hand. The other requires a can of conductive paint and a high-density foam roller with four ridges. After the wires are carefully run along the wall or ceiling, a touchup roller with matched interior paint would conceal the traces. Connections could be made with a copper tab that you can solder a wire to, would be superglued to the wall and the conductive paint brushed on and around it to make the trace connection.
This "solution" repulses me since it goes against every instinct of proper design and following the Ethernet cabling standard. But...hey, if you can't generate enough trust with your soon-to-be relatives to let you run REAL wires, then you have to deal. Honestly, if running WIRES (a valuable improvement, come on!) was such a problem with either my girlfriend or landlord, I'd seriously start to wonder what other problems might be present in both relationships.
...
You say your gf/wife/whatever will kill you for running Cat 5.... whats wrong with 10base2?
:)
Since its not a star topology, you don't have to run cables to one return point, just between nodes.
If you really want faster than 10mbps, you can run it at 16 mbps w/ token ring
You might already have coax running ghetto style for cable tv, whats one more?
Need a Catering Connection
1. Break up with GF and run the wires down the hall. Where are your priorities man.
... err ... your landlords house.
2. You want to network a house that you don't own? What a waste of money. Why don't you buy a house? Believe me the amount of money you pay in rent is about the same as owning plus that money you pay is equity you have later in life.
3. As already mentioned go wireless. No wires, no holes and it keeps the girlfriend happy. A little more money but it will get the internet to the 6 computers in your
I use Intel Anypoint 10mbps cards at home - the network works fine. It is more than fast enough for broadband internet and LAN games. File transfers vary in speed, but I think they usually go about 4Mbps or faster (which is compeltely acceptable for my network). The only problem is that ALL of the 10Mbps HPNA cards I know of use a Broadcomm chip that has no linux support, and none of the manufacturers (including broadcomm) is willing to release drivers or datasheets. This means that I can only use windows at home - no *nix.
My server
Walls and stuff reduces your range ya know..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well some people dont have the ablity to buy a house, regardless of the fact they are paying more to rent.
You have to prove tothe bank you are a good risk, regardless of what is 'cheaper' or 'makes more sence'.
And renting is NOT a waste of money.. you have to live somewhere. It may not be an investment, but its not a waste.
*disclamer, i do own.. and have cat5 on the floor, shorterm beacuse attics are hard to crawl around in... to the displeasure of the wife --
---- Booth was a patriot ----
dunno if this will help, but there is a driver for some broadcom chips...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
A lot of the newer houses I have seen have the phone lines arranged in a star configuration. You could run 10Mb ethernet over the phone lines to a central hub. (Assuming that the phone lines are Cat 3 quality.) This would prevent you from plugging phones into those jacks, but you wouldn't have to rewire the house. If you want phones near your computers, use a wireless phone line extender.
Run the cable through windows, let it hang loose and drape it over the roof - maybe put it inside some PVC pipe to protect it a bit on the roof from the elements - leave a "droop" at the point where it comes in the window so that rain will drop off and not into the house.
I would advise against trying to run the cable via the electrical conduit and getting new plates as others have suggested. While this sounds like a good idea, running 120VAC next to Cat5 would almost have to introduce noise into the line. Furthermore, if the lines are in flexible conduit, there likely won't be enough room for both - the little room there is would make moving the Cat5 a bear, perhaps even dangerous. If it isn't in conduit, navigating the holes in the firebreak crossbeams in the wall will be a nightmare, to say the least.
Keep these problems in mind when you buy a house, though - because it WILL influence your decision on what to buy. The house I bought earlier this year was perfect for wiring anything. It was built in the early 1970's with block construction. The interior walls are drywall set off from the brick by vertical 1x2 furring strips - there isn't any insulation between the strips and the wall, and no horizontal furring strips - so running cable is as simple as getting into the attic, drilling a hole in the baseplate 2x4 at the top of the brick, and dropping the cable down the hole!
All that and no damn HOA!!!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The last three places I've been I've drilled holes when I wasn't allowed. If you've got baseboard heat, hide the holes behind the radiator. Otherwise make the holes 1/4" in diameter, and some joint compound will cover the hole in minutes before you move out. At the hardware store you can buy a spray can that you can put standard latex paint in. Match the color and feather out from the center of the patch when you're done. Furniture will keep the hole invisible if the landlord comes over to visit. Believe me, even the most obsessive compulsive/invasive landlord isn't going to notice holes like that. My last evil landlord lady couldn't find the single hole that wasn't behind the radiator when she did her rediculous inspection. I think that I'm the first person she ever had to (begrudgingly) give the entire security deposit back to.
You may want to do what I did in my house. Run the cat5 through the cold air returns.
No hot air travels in these ducts but you can run cable through them without major difficulty.
Everybody win's: You get your broadband, owners don't get holes, girlfriend don't have to look at cat5 all the time
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
Question for all the people talking about wireless:
are there any *cheap* implementations of per-user-per-session key generation setups, or are you thinking of changing WEP keys every time you figure the total amount of traffic you've broadcast has reached a usable amount for airsnort to crack? (you've got to be kidding, right?)
I know Cisco has LEAP, I don't think their setup will be cheap (correct me if I'm wrong?).
Doe Lucent/WaveLAN/Agere/Orinoco have an equivalent per-user-per-session setup?
Anyways, I think if you've got a house that wireless can't cover with a single base station, then you really shouldn't worry about the trifling cost of a couple of access points (or, for that matter, some expensive Cisco LEAP setup
(I'm taking it it's not some kind of out-on-the-bayou ranch, since HomePNA and whatnot wouldn't work there either).
It takes quite a few walls to block off 802.11, and unless your house is nuclear-strike-resistant, you really shouldn't have transmission problems. Why don't you borrow a base station from a friend to test?
"I also don't know if there is Linux support for the chipset."
try here, or more specifically here.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away