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5 Powerline Networking Devices Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "Most people who can't or won't hardwire for broadband have an obvious alternative: Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, there can be architectural anomalies between floors or even between rooms that can interfere with Wi-Fi signals, resulting in spotty, or even dead, signals. So what do you do? Well, you can try using a powerline device. Computerworld reviewer Bill O'Brien tests powerline units from Belkin, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear and Zyxel, and compares their performance to that of his wired and wireless setups."
A little slow; but at least they are flaky and expensive, so I give them a thumbs up.
Just make sure that a 240V device, like an oven or dryer
Shit, I have a gas oven and dryer. Guess I'm stuck with this crappy Cat5e infrastructure instead ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
tried some tests using computers at opposite ends of the house and was able to get around 3 or 4 MB/s transfer between them. My 802.11n wireless network usually peaks at around 6-8 MB/s
You should translate those hard to understand units into something more intuitive like "minutes to transfer 8.06GB of data" ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think I'd just scotch-tape cat5 to the walls before trying to use the electrical wiring.
Right now you can think freely, but they're working on that.
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From personal experience, I have to say the Belkin Powerline AV+ unit is by far the best of the bunch here. Rock solid performance all the way. Look no further!
Sincerely,
Mark Bayard
I tried using Netgear powerline devices to connect my outside security cameras to my router about a year ago. It kinda worked--as long as I didn't expect too much in the way of throughput—like streaming video instead of occasional JPEGs. I also had a couple of computers connected via Wi-Fi at the time, and was so (unreasonably) encouraged by this less than stellar success that I switched them over to powerline "warts" too. They worked pretty well.
Then I moved my router to another room, and I haven't gotten these things to work ever again. Apparently, if your house wiring is just so, the powerline warts are fine; if the wiring—or the wiring between the points you are trying to connect—is not what the warts want, you won't get a signal.
Somebody told me I should try one of those "bridges" that the X-10 people use to connect different parts of their home wiring so their X10 devices work, but messing with these things was giving me a worse chronic eyelid twitch than wireless. Luckily, I discovered that my youngest daughter has all the necessary qualifications for an excellent cable monkey—mainly, she's petite enough to worm her way through tight, dark spaces, and isn't afraid of spiders. So I just tied some CAT5 to her ankle and sent her into the attic. No more problems now, everything's connected. Wire is good.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Why is it you can't let the Ethernet cable hang through the hall again?
because your wife said no way in hell.
Sounds like someone needs a new wife.