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Network over electrical wiring

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  • 06-07-2012 5:28pm
    #1
    BKtje
    Registered Users Posts: 8,052 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks. I did a quick search but could only find topics from years ago so I hope I'm not repeating a topic :)

    Basically I am looking for information on creating a network using the pre-existing electrical wiring of the apartment. Does any one have any experience doing this? What should I check to ensure it will work? What speeds are attainable? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

    more info:
    The apartment has a UPC (switzerland) cable connection which is connected to a wap. This is in the living room and wireless speeds there are great. The problem is in our rooms the speed can be abysmal. One day I can get 2mb/s and the next I can barely browse boards (possible interference from other devices/apartments I guess).

    I considered just running a network cable and adding a second AP near the bedrooms (daisy chaining them) or running cat5 to each room but then we'd have to switch which AP we use depending on whether we are in our bedrooms or the main room and would have to run a fair amount of cable so was hoping for an easier solution such as network over electrical wiring.

    Any suggestions on network over the mains or other possible solutions to my problem would be much appreciated. Thanks!


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    #2
    who_me
    Registered Users Posts: 3,669 ✭✭✭who_me


    I just did this recently, and it was very easy, and works well. BUT, it depends on the distance between the nodes, and I believe they all need to be on the same 'circuit'.

    I just needed my desktop in the study (with my music & videos on it) to be connected to the router in the living room, so I bought 2 "500Mbps" Powerline adaptors. They came with 2 short Ethernet cables for plugging the adaptors into the router on one end and my desktop on the other. Once they're plugged in, you tap a sync button on one, walk (quickly) to the other adaptor and hit the sync button, and that pairs them so they can send data encrypted. Otherwise, anyone else in your building using Powerline adaptors might access your network - depending on the circuit topology.

    Ignore the listed speeds, if you get 20% of the listed speed you're doing very well. In my case, I get 80-90Mbps; but it's a steady speed and rock-solid connection. Slower than my broadband's listed speed, but faster then the 'real world' speeds with N Wifi.


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    #3
    Saganist
    Registered Users Posts: 1,333 ✭✭✭Saganist


    BKtje wrote: »
    (possible interference from other devices/apartments I guess).

    Have you tried changing your wireless channel ?


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    #4
    MrVestek
    Registered Users Posts: 9,216 ✭✭✭MrVestek


    I was just about to suggest changing the wireless channel too, there are probably a lot of devices on your network that are using the default channel 6 which would cause a fair bit of interference.

    Usually best to try and chance channel to either 1 or 10 as it's unlikely that other devices on the area would either be on the very low or very high end of the scale.

    Also if you have a decent WAN it should be able to detect the channels that other networks are on in the area and adjust accordingly... although this may have to be configured and enabled first.


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