Homeplug/Powerline networking?????

Conar

Hi All

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these.
Probably should have asked before I bought them but what the hell.
Waiting for them to be delivered now anyway.

My reason for getting them was that my brother likes to play a lot of online games and suffers major lags due to the wireless setup in the house being quite unstable.

Has anyone used them?
Do they give a steady reliable connection? (doesn't need to be high bandwith, a reliable 10mbps would be a great improvement)

Anyway just wondering, let me know!


P.S. Homeplug AV will be hitting the shelfs soon which will be a great benefit for media center setups.

Avns1s

Hi Conar,

I use them between my main router which is upstairs and the wireless AP which I have installed downstairs. I needed to do this due to signal drop because of the concrete floors. I can of course plug the thing into any socket in the house. It works perfectly. No latency that I can detect. Yours should be fine too.

Conar

Thanks, thats exactly what I wanted to hear.

Conar

Got them and they work perfectly!
Excellent piece of kit, I'm suprised they don't sell more of 'em!

liamo

I was researching this product recently with a view to buying a few units for testing.

I have quite a specific requirement whereby I'd like to connect up all the tenants in a caravan park.

How are the devices separated into separate LANs? That is, each caravan is separately metered - does this mean that I wouldn't be able to link up all the caravans - just the power points within each caravan? I've done a bit of searching with no luck so if anyone's got a URL with more info that would be great. Of course, if you know the exact answer that would be even better .

Are they available in Ireland (PCWorld, for example - or elsewhere) ?

Regards,

Liamo

Avns1s

Conar wrote:

Got them and they work perfectly!
Excellent piece of kit, I'm suprised they don't sell more of 'em!

Hi Conar, do you mind if I ask where you got yours and how much they were?

Thanks in advance.

philologos

I have with USB they are very laggy. not worth the bother.

Foxwood

liamo wrote:

That is, each caravan is separately metered - does this mean that I wouldn't be able to link up all the caravans - just the power points within each caravan?

This page says "HomePlug technology uses the household electricity meter as a natural barrier from eavesdroppers." But they also say you should use the encryption anyway.

Conar

I got them on EBAY:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9724268551

I installed them for my brother so I don't have the documentation here with me so all I can say for now is that they worked a treat for online gaming.
Up to now he had been experiencing bad lags over the wireless LAN so now he connects directly to he router via the homeplugs.
I did install some software which appeared to control encryption etc but was in a rush setting it up so I didn't have a chance to fiddle.
I'll take a closer look in a day or two and give you more info.

With regards to the campsite idea, I think that the encryption/security etc is set up on each PC using the software so unless you're going to hand out the software to each person staying and ask them to install it etc I don't think it could work! I'll try to check this out though!

Foxwood

Conar wrote:

With regards to the campsite idea, I think that the encryption/security etc is set up on each PC using the software so unless you're going to hand out the software to each person staying and ask them to install it etc I don't think it could work! I'll try to check this out though!

I got the impression that the software is used to setup the encryption that is used on the signal between the homeplugs - the signal that comes out of the ethernet ports on the plugs should be unencrypted.

One of the uses for Homeplugs is to connect the newer generations of networked AV equipment that wouldn't be able to run any decryption client.

azzeretti

Does anyone know a high street supplier of these? I need to get a few of them quick (tomorrow, for a job!). PCWorld, Dixons etc?

Conar

I'm not aware of any. Thats not to say there is none though!
Sorry I can't help more.
This ebay crowd managed to get them to me in 3 business days if that could work:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9724268551

Foxwood

azzeretti wrote:

Does anyone know a high street supplier of these? I need to get a few of them quick (tomorrow, for a job!). PCWorld, Dixons etc?

MicroPro on Nutgrove Avenue list the ZyXEL PL-100 in their database.

I've no experience with the product (it says that it is "HomePlug 1.0 Certified") and I've no idea if MicroPro have it in stock, or if it's in their database because they can get it if you order it.

Elara have the same product for a lower price, but I don't know if you can walk in and pick it up.

magick

im currently using the asoka homeplug and router and play a LOT of online games and have noticed no lag, in fact since i got it im not going back to wireless with the probs iv had, i seem to think powerline is a really interesting technology but its a pity many dont know about it

http://www.asokausa.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23

azzeretti

magick wrote:

im currently using the asoka homeplug and router and play a LOT of online games and have noticed no lag, in fact since i got it im not going back to wireless with the probs iv had, i seem to think powerline is a really interesting technology but its a pity many dont know about it

http://www.asokausa.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23

I never managed to get these, did you order these from the states or did you source them closer to home?

magick

you should be able to here is there online shop and they ship to ireland

http://www.asokausa.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31

digiking

magick wrote:

you should be able to here is there online shop and they ship to ireland

http://www.asokausa.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31

Surely they are all designed for use on 110v power circuits and they would have the american style plug too...

Digiking

Foxwood

digiking wrote:

Surely they are all designed for use on 110v power circuits and they would have the american style plug too...

Digiking

Some of the items isted on the website (like this one) show US, UK and Euro plug type, and the Data Sheet says "Power Consumption: 90V-260V" (I know, that's not a measure of consumption).

But I don't see anything on the order page about ordering specific plug types.

zilog_jones

I thought I saw these in PC World and/or Maplin, or was I imagining things? I didn't think they were that hard to come by...

digiking

Maybe there like ipod or creative zen adapters - with the appropriate snap in adapters included for each area.

digiking

JohnnieM

Try Commsys in Clane county Kildare 045 868858

magick

Maybe there like ipod or creative zen adapters - with the appropriate snap in adapters included for each area.

nopers different plug per unit , example u can get uk euro us plug units

currently im using 2 asoka american units with uk adapters as well as an asoka router and they work just fine for me, no lag.

I demand no lag when playing battlefield

peckerhead

Sorry to resuscitate an old thread, but it came up in a search...

Since I don't already have any wireless gear, I'm half-thinking of trying out one of those Homeplug kits, to connect a PC & Xbox in the young lad's bedroom upstairs to our wired (BT) 1MB router downstairs. For something like Xbox Live, would it make any appreciable difference whether I got the 14MBPS instead of the 85MBPS kit? The former can be had very cheaply on eBay, and of course I'll need two of them. But I've heard a couple of people say that 14MBPS — or whatever fraction of that you actually get in practice! — isn't fast enough (and indeed that it's a bit of a struggle with standard 54MBPS wireless) ...is that the case?

Also, I presume we'd then be sharing the bandwidth? So if daughter dearest was limewiring away at +100Kb/s downstairs (that's the fastest we get in practice) and yer man went online upstairs, they'd each get about half of that?