HomePlug 85Mbps Ethernet adapter with a built in 54Mbps access point

[Bob Crabtree]

Solwise announces the PL-85PEW

HomePlug 85Mbps Ethernet Adapter with a built in 54Mbps Access Point

Hull, UK, February 27th 2006 – Solwise, a UK based 'Direct Channel' importer and distributor of telecoms and computer products, today announced the Solwise PL-85PEW – the latest addition to its HomePlug Family.

The Solwise PL-85PEW is a Homeplug 85Mbps Ethernet Adapter with a built in 54Mbps access point. The adaptor uses the Intellon 85Mbps Turbo chipset which means it is compatible with the rest of the Solwise HomePlug range. The built-in wireless access point uses the Infineon Wildpass Chipset - this solution transforms your home power circuit into a networking infrastructure and a WAN connection.

Check out the release.

If you're not familiar with HomePlug, just know that it's a mains-borne Ethernet networking standard that does away with the hassle of running cables and of the vagaries of WiFi connectivity - so, in one sense, the new Solwise gadget is a bit of an anomaly.

We've recently gone hands-on with a bunch of HomePlug kit (none Solwise, as yet) and from our experience, it just seems to work - which is a BIG relief after some of the grief we've suffered with WiFi.

Watch out for an upcoming review of devolo's MicroLink dLAN Highspeed Starter Kit.

If you want to know more about HomePlug, there's lots of useful info at HomePlug.org - we'd suggest that you start with the
HomePlug FAQ.

[autopilot]

I was thinking about buying one of the Delolo's a few months back for my Squeezebox 3, but went for WiFI instead. Great idea though the main thing people need to check before buying one is the the room's they plan to network are on the same 'ring'. For example, i have heard of a few people i had thier PC upstairs but could not connect with rooms downstairs as the upstairs and downstairs where on different curcuits/rings. It all depends on how your house is wired up really. I have also heard that there can be some interference. Not problems with data, but things like lightbulbs can flicker slightly.

[DR]

Wireless is great for uhm - notebooks.

The way I see it - its only worth having wireless if you do want to move things about since all systems have power points anyway.

I don't mind running cable and the reliability is far better

[directhex]

Originally Posted by David

Wireless is great for uhm - notebooks.

The way I see it - its only worth having wireless if you do want to move things about since all systems have power points anyway.

I don't mind running cable and the reliability is far better

spot on. you've seen my place - wireless for laptop use, dirty great cat5 cables pinned to the skirting boards for towers

[DR]

Originally Posted by directhex

spot on. you've seen my place - wireless for laptop use, dirty great cat5 cables pinned to the skirting boards for towers

And you still haven't come to see mine so uhm

[EvilWeevil]

Originally Posted by David

Wireless is great for uhm - notebooks.

The way I see it - its only worth having wireless if you do want to move things about since all systems have power points anyway.

I don't mind running cable and the reliability is far better

I find the complete opposite - wireless does the job more quickly and more easily for any computer for me - eg building a computer its easier to stick in a ten quid wireless card than wire it.

Although I would consider mains networking, as it has the same benefits for me. Not too sure about our "retro" wiring though...

[DR]

Originally Posted by EvilWeevil

I find the complete opposite - wireless does the job more quickly and more easily for any computer for me - eg building a computer its easier to stick in a ten quid wireless card than wire it.

Although I would consider mains networking, as it has the same benefits for me. Not too sure about our "retro" wiring though...

Well not sure how many systems, or other units you are using on the 2.4GHz band - but there are inherant problems with it.

A Cable will always be more effective than wireless. I am not stating having Wireless cards in a system is useful but I do think they have a long way to come.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

I am using Homeplug networking and its ACE! well worth it... I am looking into purchasing a 85mbps soon heheh

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by dangerous_dom

the main thing people need to check before buying one is the the room's they plan to network are on the same 'ring'. For example, i have heard of a few people i had thier PC upstairs but could not connect with rooms downstairs as the upstairs and downstairs where on different curcuits/rings. It all depends on how your house is wired up really. I have also heard that there can be some interference. Not problems with data, but things like lightbulbs can flicker slightly.

Is this first-hand information you are relaying?

Not sure that the upstairs/downstairs thing is likely to be a very common problem, except in houses that had been split into flats and later reunited without using a single mains meter box.

We did one lot of tests where we took a devolo unit into a neighbouring property - and found that, even there, we could see the network in our offices, it's just that the connection was so sloooow, that it was totally unusable, with the attention of the network being easily lost.

Did manage to print a couple of very plain documents this way, though - one from MS Word and one from Notepad.



Anything more complex, though - such as a Word doc with clip art - and printing seemed impossible (or, perhaps, likely to take longer than we would ever have considered waiting).

File copying and internet access also proved impossible from next door but ran sweetly within our building.

What we also found is that the networking speed WITHIN our offices (from upstairs to down) was sufficient for us to stream most times of video over the network, including WMV HD 1080i, which impressed the hell out of us.

And, the whole thing is totally transparent, with no faffing about the way you have to do with wireless - and no messy cable runs, of course, either.

As for interference - we've seen no signs of the networking kit having any effect on anything else in the building, whether it's lights or anything else, and we have a big variety of light types, including five sorts of fluorescent, and innumerable conventional tungsten lamps.

[autopilot]

No not first-hand Bob sorry. Just info i picked up from places like Avforums and other sites when i was looking into it. And yes the ring/curcuit issues were mainly in older property a fairly rare IIRC.

Bob, have you tried the unit that also has audio (phono) plugs? I would be very interested to know how well they work.

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by EvilWeevil

I find the complete opposite - wireless does the job more quickly and more easily for any computer for me - eg building a computer its easier to stick in a ten quid wireless card than wire it.

Although I would consider mains networking, as it has the same benefits for me. Not too sure about our "retro" wiring though...

I'd bet that the wiring in the building in which we conducted our main tests would fit into the retro category, too, but it didn't seem to matter.

The REAL problem with wireless, in my view, is the man or woman in the street will very often struggle with WiFi and, all too often, only get it working by NOT using any of the security options.

I can readily think of half a dozen friends, relatives, acquintances who, in the last three months have ended up pulling their hair out and only getting a resolution by talking to me (in some cases, dropping the whole kit round to me).

I know that there are wireless solutions available now that are trying hard to address the usability problem.

LinkSys, for instance, has a very clever solution, a button you press on one of the bits of kit to start off a dialogue that gets the network sorted, including security settings.

But, as far as I am aware, that sort of consideration for ordinary users, rather than people with lots of network experience, is still far from being the norm, though I'd presume it will be commonplace a year or so down the line.

However, the HomePlug 85Mbps standard as implemented by devolo - although it doesn't deliver anything like 85Mbps on an individual computer-to-computer basis - is plenty fast enough for virtually every possible use, including video streaming.

Okay, I get much faster data transfers using various Gigabit-capable PCs connected via a Gigabit switch, but that really only benefits me when I'm punting around very large files - something that most people won't do anything like as often as I do.

But what more and more of them will be doing is streaming video from PCs to network media players connected to TV sets and AV systems, and the devolo kit handles that very well, as we found out when we tested a Pinnacle ShowCenter 200 network media box using the mains-borne system.

Know, too, that there is another version of HomePlug called HomePlug AV that I'm expecting devolo and others to dem at CeBIT 2006 next month.

This promises a nominal total system data-transfer rate of 250Mbps.

And whatever that turns out to mean in terms of traffic from one device to another, it really should be good enough (in theory) for anything that ADSL-2 and TVoverIP can throw at it (though I'd be kind of surprised if the 85Mbps stuff was found wanting in the UK for a few years).

Heck, for those people who have broadband and don't do any around-the-house streaming, the previous-generation 14Mbps (nominal) kit is likely to deliver far higher data rates than the best you get via downloads - judging from personal experience.

[Kumagoro]

You can already get 200 Mbps homeplug stuff

http://www.shopmagenta.com/product/CXPAV200ETH.aspx

but its not as tidy as the 11 Mbps and 85 Mbps ones.

If you want them on the cheap you can get them here

Up untill recently they were the same as the black solwise ones.
http://www.shopmagenta.com/product/HP85.aspx

http://www.nickknows.com/browse.php?category=639


At adsguide they rated the solwise ones higher than the more expensive develo ones.

I like the idea of the duo ones at nickknows, would be very useful for having VOIP phones
about the house. Pity they are only 11 Mbps ones.

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by Kumagoro

You can already get 200 Mbps homeplug stuff

http://www.shopmagenta.com/product/CXPAV200ETH.aspx

but its not as tidy as the 11 Mbps and 85 Mbps ones.

You can say that again. This is a great brute of a thing and doesn't work transparently the way the 14Mbps and 85Mbps stuff does - there's a 39-page manual and it looks to me like you'd need to read that carefully if the five-page quick-start guide doesn't get you up and running. That guide starts off this way:

1. Connect the Corinex AV200 Powerline Ethernet Adapter to the electrical socket.
2. Connect the computer to the adapter, using a straight-forward Ethernet cable
which came with the product.
3. Change the IP address of your computer to 10.10.1.1, network mask 255.255.0.0.
For more information on how to set the IP address in you system, please see the
User Guide which can be found on the enclosed CD.
4. Start your web browser (eg. Internet Explorer) and open the webpage
http://10.10.1.69.
5. The authentication pages of the Corinex AV200 Powerline Ethernet Adapter will
appear.

Not quite plug-and-play the way the 14/85Mbps stuff is.

Originally Posted by Kumagoro

If you want them on the cheap you can get them here

Up untill recently they were the same as the black solwise ones.
http://www.shopmagenta.com/product/HP85.aspx

http://www.nickknows.com/browse.php?category=639.

Ah, right, NOT the Corinex AV200 but the eConnect-branded 14/85Mbps stuff. And I see that if I go to eConnect's site, there's a page flagging up the coming availability of a combi unit that is strikingly similar to the Solwise one that this thread is about.

Originally Posted by Kumagoro

At adsguide they rated the solwise ones higher than the more expensive develo ones.

I like the idea of the duo ones at nickknows, would be very useful for having VOIP phones
about the house. Pity they are only 11 Mbps ones

We're just starting out looking at this stuff, and I'm currently in contact with the Solwise and LEA (a French firm that doesn't currently sell retail in the UK), as well as devolo, and will be hassling Corinex shortly.

I currently hold a devolo dLAN duo (USB/Ethernet) Starter Kit and will be looking at this when I finish writing up the devolo MicroLink dLAN Highspeed Starter Kit.

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by Kumagoro

You can already get 200 Mbps homeplug stuff

http://www.shopmagenta.com/product/CXPAV200ETH.aspx

but its not as tidy as the 11 Mbps and 85 Mbps ones.

Now I am confused!

I've looked at this a bit closer and it seems to me to be something rather different from HomePlug AV.

It's a Powerline device intended, I think, to bring into the building an Internet connection via the mains.

So that's not the same idea at all as PowerPlug which is for creating an ethernet network over the mains within a building.

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by Bob Crabtree

Now I am confused!

I've looked at this a bit closer and it seems to me to be something rather different from HomePlug AV.

It's a Powerline device intended, I think, to bring into the building an Internet connection via the mains.

So that's not the same idea at all as PowerPlug which is for creating an ethernet network over the mains within a building.

Justifiably confused, it turns out.

I've been talking this through with Corinex and have been told that this isn't what I though but is, instead, a rival system to HomePlug.

My man at Corinex tells me,

"The difference being UPA 200 Mbps technology has been shipping for about 1 year, HomePlug AV 200 Mbps technology (products) won’t ship until about Q4 of this year."

[Elessar_VPR]

Was looking into the possibility of using homeplug a few months ago (never got round to it though as am at Uni half the time), and noted somewhere that there were some issues when trying to run the units in a 4-way extension lead, for example, especially if it was surge protected. Anyone know if this is true or not?