HomePlug

I am thinking about buying HomePlus networking to cover our home - we
have a large old house and the wireless is very poor in many places.

We have a single incoming electricity supply through a single meter.
The power then split into two consumer units each of which feeds
several ring mains protected by RCDs.

My question is whether the Homeplug product is likely to connect
successfully through the two consumer units? Are the 200Mb systems
likely to have a better range than the 85Mb ones?

Views and experiences welcome.

Thanks

 

I've used homeplug devices, made by Solwise, in a very old rambling cottage
with three different fuse boxes (I think at least one uses fuses and the
others use RCDs). This was the slow (14 Mbps?) devices because the customer
couldn't see the need for faster devices to allow PC-PC comms when he just
wanted internet access (he's since realised the benefits of file and printer
sharing and that I was talking a lot of sense, and regrets not getting 85 or
200 devices!).

They worked fine for a year or so but then suddenly lost communication
between the router and one of the outlying computers on a different mains
circuit. I forget the precise symptom. I ended up having to move the router
to a mains socket and phone socket that was closer to the affected computer
(and maybe on the same mains circuit), and connect a second computer by
another homeplug whereas previously it had been close enough to use
wireless.

 

Homeplugs work on phases, if your supply is all the same phase then they
will work. From what you've described I think you, but I'm not an
electrician!

 

Thanks to everyone - they are all on the same phase - I am sure of
that as we have gone from 3 phase to single phase supply.

 

We use it here - the 14MBPS version though as I wanted to try it out
first.

Yes, I have one in the garage and it works fine in there also. I got
the Netgear one with a homeplug wireless access point, so this can be
put somewhere there is a requirement for a wireless point - i.e, I put
mine on the landing, and it can be accessed by a wide range in the
house. I also use one in my room for connecting another system on,
and it works very well. Most of the other systems use RJ45 at 100 or
1000MBPS ethernet, I haven't really noticed much speed issues, mainly
as the machines I use it on don't do much file/printer sharing for
large files.

The other reason i got the 14MBPS units was I had heard issues with
multiple versions co-existing on the same system, and I wanted the
wireless access point.

You can set encryption using a password to stop your network being
available to other people with a similar system on the same phase.

Thanks.
Andrew.