homeplug

[cougarslam]

had enough of my wireless setup so looking at moving to homeplug.

will need to connect 3 pcs to 1 router.

will using homeplug interfere with mains electricity at all?

how much is it likely to cost for al lthe adapters required etc?

[peterb]

No they won't interfere with the mains supply! Cost depends on make and supplier - try googling for good prices. (IIRC they start at about £40 per unit - you will need 4)

[burble]

you will need 4

That depends on where the machines physically are. If 2 are close together then shove a switch on a single homeplug and use that.

[clown]

I've been a homeplug user for 2 years now. I use an 85Mbps variant and paid £105 for 3 delivered (cheap then). I think its great. For about two weeks in summer 2006 I experienced problems as the devices do not work above 40 degrees C. I have had no problems this summer. Putting the homeplugs in a ventilated area not in direct sun light is not likely to recreate this temporary scenario.

You wil get 14Mbps from around £15 each (e.g. suitable for browsing, comparable performance to a good wireless network), 85Mbps from around £25 each (e.g. suitable for steaming video, better performance than most wireless networks), 200Mbps from around £60 each (a necessity if you want your network as fast as possible).

I cannot report being aware of any interfere with mains electricity. The technology involved should not.

[pollaxe]

I've just got hold of a couple of these to stream standard def content to a media centre and I'm very happy with them. This is on old wiring, too.

[Chimaera_5]

I use Devolo plugs and they've worked perfectly from the moment i took them out of the box.

Usually get a stable 30-50mbps using the 85mbps plugs, thats connecting 3 machines at the same time.

Very highly recommended.

[Moby-Dick]

Homeplug sounds like a nice alternative - does anyone fancy writing a bit of a "megapost" about it ?

pictures , initial experiences , learning curve etc ?

[aidanjt]

There's not much to it really, it's just ethernet using mains power lines as the carrier, which makes it a tad on the slow side, but faster than wireless, and more reliable than wireless to boot.

[Agent]

Im off to a mates to "install" some later (its more configuring the OS to be honest). Don't expect any issues though.

[pp05]

Good choice.

They just work. Opt for 85mb/s ones, they at a good price now.

[roddines]

The best value solution these days is the 85Mbs Homeplug technology and it is finally getting affordable.

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/defa...ShopGroupID=61

This is the best value kit at less than £50 for two devices.

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=4744

You need two to start with one to plug into your router (or hub/switch) and one for the device(s) you want to plug in.

Then only another £25 for additonal outlets for other PC's etc. (or buy them in twos in the starter packs)

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=4746

Its Easy. I did one recently and it works and is dead simple (of course you PC needs to have a spare ethernet port).

Note: The 85Mbps and 14Mps Homeplug are standards and run OK across brands. The 200Mbps version is not usually backward compatible with these older versions.

[Lanky123]

Amazon have one for £22. Is there anything that can go wrong with homeplugs if you get cheap ones? Are there any brands to avoid?

[roddines]

Nice price...They look suspiciously like an unbranded Philips one (ie same case and lights). I have seen the Philips one up close. Maybe they are B grade product or just unbranded from same production line?? I think I would tend to pay a few punds more and get a reputable brand and warranty. If they where £10 cheaper each I'd take a risk. Pretty much 90% of them have the same insides as far as the Homeplug standards go...that is they use oem chips from http://www.intellon.com

There are other vendors too but they dominate. So I guess they are all pretty similar.

[roddines]

Personally I think it would be hard to write a megapost about them. They are pretty simple really. Just think of them as a pair of RJ45 ethernet sockets with a limited throughput (ie an Ethernet bridge). And if you use more than two pretend they all go back to a common ethernet hub (some people know these as switches today) and thats pretty much it.

It gets slightly more complex when you want to secure them. Like if your nieghbours and you both use them or your in a shared block of flats or the like. They usually come with a CD with software to do this. They then just use some encyption keys to ensure the logical networks are isolated even if the physical ones are not.

The signals can traverse up to 200M of power cable without any repeater. They use a spread spectrum of radio signals modulated on to the power line similar to they way modern military radio communications are now done, this prevents (or reduces problems associated with) jamming and interference due to noise in a particular frequency range and ensure communications can survive very troublesome environments.

Even the Wikipedia entry is small http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlu...rline_Alliance

On the multiple phase issue they mention here...A little more explanation. 3 phase power is used for the normal distribution of mains (AC) power supplies almost everywhere (thats why the big towers have 3 lines...they are not the same as the three plugs on the power plug). In a housing estate a local transformer splits different hosue supplies off the 3 phase supply into different single phase suppies to each group of houses to balance the supply across all phases. When a building is running on 3 phase power as in most industrial estates or in larger buildings then it is possible for different fuses/circuit breakers in the mains supply box of one building to be supplying different cable runs of power sockets with power from different phases (to help balance the load on the 3 phases). The problem here is that the radio siganls that homeplug is using cannot sometimes bridge those phases.

This can be the reason why a homeplug network may not seem to work in a large building or in an industrial setting. Hence I guess the name "Home"plug. There is a solution. If you can find two sockets on different phase power busses (circuits) near by to each other (probably close to the main power distribution board) you can simply bridge the two networks with a pair of homeplugs and an ethernet cable between them (depending on the homeplug products this may have to be a cross over cable if they don't do auto cross over). Alternatively you could have an electrician wire up two or three sockets on the two or three different circuits/phases near the distibution box just for this purpose or if possible you could use a longer ethernet cable to join two sockets that are a longer distance apart.

[peterb]

Alternatively you could have an electrician wire up two or three sockets on the two or three different circuits/phases near the distibution box just for this purpose or if possible you could use a longer ethernet cable to join two sockets that are a longer distance apart.

IETE wiring regulations specify minimum physical distances between socket outlets on different phases (because the voltage between phases is between 415V). I think that distance is 2 metres. (ie, more than an arm span)

[roddines]

Thanks for the update on that.. But what is the minimum distance?