Hardware Belkin Powerline AV Network Adapters

how does that stop them?? wiki says nothing!

 

how does that stop them?? wiki says nothing![/QUOTE]

Often separate houses will be on different phases from a 3-phase supply or will have a return noise filter on the line side of the power meter, these tend to interpret as noise and smooth out the high frequency signal from the networking gadget.

 

Are these a good option for gaming then? I have my xbox 360 connected via wireless adapter and drilling a hole or two for a Cat5 cable is really not something I want to do. If this is sufficient - I may consider it - Could you guys perhaps run a test of some sort to see how it runs? if it works well?

 

I have 4 of the BT Vision ones - They're also 200Mbps, although MCB's (ie from the upstairs ring to the downstairs ring) play havoc with the speeds. It dips to ~14Mbps sometimes. Mind you, that's still better than the flaky wireless we get.

Speeds are also dependant on transient load. A large inductive load, like the hoover or washing machine, will also cause speed blips, but it's not too bad generally.

 

I cannot see these working in my house, the main problem being the water pumps which are a large enough load to dim all the lights.
However, despite being quite a big house, we have manage to get a wireless signal all over it and that is only with g. Its not like we have particularly thin walls either
Anyway, the internet is always going to be the slowest link and I can't persuade my parents to let me put in any computers that aren't strictly necessary... the BBC iplayer laptop is hanging on by pretending not to be anything to do with the TV

 

You should get the equivalent of a 100Mbps wired network if your wiring is good & you get a 200Mbps Powerline kit, so this is ideal for gaming & downloading movies. Mind you, I've found I get 85Mbps from one socket & 100Mbps from the one next to it, so simple changes to your basic mains circuit have a significant effect.

 

Good thing to add another wifi access point in the house ^^

Their other problem is that they send a MHz signal through UNSHIELDED wires, and thus your whole wiring becomes an antenna, which is worse than wifi interference wise.
I laugh at those who use this because wifi is "too much radio waves"...

 

Thanks for the review guys, just bought one of these yesterday (at inflated Argos prices unfortunately), but it works brilliantly - no more flakey wirless connection.

 

I've been using powerline networking in my house for a few years. Its a perfect replacement for wireless which has never worked more than a few meters away from the AP for some reason. Its a bottleneck when moving large files, but I dont use my network for that anyway.

 

Power Line Adapters (PLAs) whilst seemingly a good solution to home
networking are essentially a very poor technology. They pollute the
radio spectrum, interfere with your neighbors’ radio (preventing
reception of Short Wave broadcasts) and do not adhere to the European
EMC directives.

They rely upon your internal house wiring to pass signals between
units. Unfortunately, your house wiring is a good aerial and these
signals go far beyond your house, many 100s of yards and in some cases
get into external telephone lines and street wiring and have even been
known to radiate from lamp posts. The units effectively become the
same as an illegal radio transmitter.

The government and OFCOM know the problems regarding PLAs and will
respond when complaints are made by your neighbours, by removing the
devices, so please ensure that the retailer has a sale or return
policy. In a lot of cases involving BT, this translates to BT
replacing the PLAs with CAT5 cabling.

Home networking has a perfectly good wireless system based on the IEEE
802.11 standard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11). This
is commonly called WiFi and operates at frequencies (2.4GHz) that do
not interfere with other equipment. It is legal, adheres to all
European EMC directives and allows you to transfer your broadband and
gaming system throughout the house.

There are campaigns afoot both at local and governmental level to have
PLAs removed from the shops and banned. Australia has already taken
steps to ban PLA devices.

So in reality, they are not such a good idea after all.

 

Err, no it doesn't. It allows you to network PC's in the same room (just), but any further than that and my (apparently lead-lined) walls block the signal.

 

All new houses should be required by law to have Cat5e connections in every room! My internet connection is downstairs and my desktop is upstairs. I bought a wireless N adaptor but the signal was very low so my only choices left are powerline or install cat5 cable.

 

well ya your signal is low, your signal strength is in the horizontal plane not the vertical, what you need to do is run a cable straight to the second floor and put an access point and then your whole upper floor will get better signal.