Powerline chip-maker DS2's vision - fast, fuss-free home networks

[Bob Crabtree]

Bob Crabtree sits down with Powerline chip-maker DS2 to learn about its vision of fuss-free, high-speed, around-the-home networking over household mains cables.

DS2 predicts that Powerline technology will grow apace fuelled by the rapid penetration of ever-faster broadband and the need for home networks able to cope reliably with the bandwidth requirements of TV-over-IP, internet gaming and media-streaming from PCs - all being used at the same time.

Find out more about DS2's vision and let us know your thoughts on Powerline, HomePlug and home-networking options generally.

[b0redom]

So is the technology very different? My experience with the Netgear HDX 200 MBit adapters was that they were awful - and the tech support people's response was that maybe it was due to the power cabling in my house.....

[MSIC]

Did I read somewhere about the way in which mass ethernet-over-power would be potentially disrupting of radio transmissions, and we'd all start seeing planes dropping out of the sky, dogs barking for no reason and people walking around with tin-foil hats..... mass hysteria? Etc.

[Bob Crabtree]

So is the technology very different? My experience with the Netgear HDX 200 MBit adapters was that they were awful - and the tech support people's response was that maybe it was due to the power cabling in my house.....

There are situations when networking-over-mains won't work but, in theory, you're most likely to have issues if, for instance, you have two quite separate ring mains systems and are trying to link from one to the other.

Did you try the kit in a different home or did you just get your money back.

[Bob Crabtree]

Did I read somewhere about the way in which mass ethernet-over-power would be potentially disrupting of radio transmissions, and we'd all start seeing planes dropping out of the sky, dogs barking for no reason and people walking around with tin-foil hats..... mass hysteria? Etc.

Well Wireless World mag did a big expose (after which nothing happened) back in early 1990s, I think.

That was solely about exposed high-voltage mains cables that run overhead on pylons - the sort that you see marching across all the loveliest landmarks - and long pre-dates the technology we're talking about here.

And, fact is, the technology we are talking about here is around-the-home mains-borne networking, not using the mains to bring broadband into the home.

[MSIC]

My own (brief) experience of ethernet over power has been positive, using a very slow, Maplin bought cheap brand, which worked as advertsied and all was well.
The only issue was i could at one point see my network but not get an IP address allocated to the PC over DHCP, and it transpired to be that when plugged into a cheap 1-to-4 power lead extender it didnt work properly, but then when plugged straight into the wall worked like a charm.

[b0redom]

There are situations when networking-over-mains won't work but, in theory, you're most likely to have issues if, for instance, you have two quite separate ring mains systems and are trying to link from one to the other.

Did you try the kit in a different home or did you just get your money back.

Well I have quite a convoluted network setup so I couldn't really take everything over to a mate's house. So I ended up sending it all back and getting 802.11n instead - in my experience it works much better.

What was surprising was that I would occasionally get reasonable ie 40-80M which would drop inexplicably to 20K randomly. It was OK for basic internet browsing, it just didn't work for any sort of streaming.

As an aside, I'm not sure about anything else, but the Netgear stuff although claiming to switch at up to 200M only had standard 100M ethernet jacks, so that absolute max you would be able to get out of it would be 100M.

[Bob Crabtree]

My own (brief) experience of ethernet over power has been positive, using a very slow, Maplin bought cheap brand, which worked as advertsied and all was well.
The only issue was i could at one point see my network but not get an IP address allocated to the PC over DHCP, and it transpired to be that when plugged into a cheap 1-to-4 power lead extender it didnt work properly, but then when plugged straight into the wall worked like a charm.

All of the manuals I've read for HomePlug stuff advise you not to plug them into four-way extension cables but, instead, plug them directly into the wall.

Fact is, here, I've ignored those instructions and not had any issues at all - maybe I happen to have not used ultra-cheap extension cables (though not consciously).

As for Powerline - the dems I saw yesterday were using four-way extension cables and DS2 seemed to think that it was normal and okay to use them.

[Jumpinbeans]

Thanks for that guys - you answered my question which i was going to ask about extension leads.

The only thing now they have to convince is me Sounds strange i know but plugs are for electricity and when people say also data i start to get a little bit suspicious.

I am sure it works though lol