How good is Phoneline Networking?

[scarfase99]

I'm looking into the 10mbps Phoneline Networking Kits & was wondering how good they are. Would they be fast enough to stream MP3z, DIVX movies?

 

[jmitchell]

i'm too lazy to find you the link, but I think tomshardware.com did a review on a few of them within the last month or two... it might have even been anand... Regardless, they seemed to be pretty good, but from what I remember the throughput maxed out at like 12Mbps or so, definitely weak compared to a 100Mbps ethernet connection... But more than enough for streaming mp3s, and video too (to a certain extent)

 

[Tiger]

They may pretty decent but for less money you can buy a pair of 100Mbps NIC's and CAT5 cable to roll your own.

 

[jimmyhaha]

I am using HPNA..
streaming MP3 and divx is OK..

copying several Gig of stuff will take some time though...

take me some time to figure out how to setup though

P.S. using diamond 10MB

 

[Eug]

<< They may pretty decent but for less money you can buy a pair of 100Mbps NIC's and CAT5 cable to roll your own. >>

Home PNA 2.0 kits are cheap as borscht these days. Not as fast as 100 Mbps Ethernet, but a helluva lot less hassle than rewiring your house. Speeds are supposedly comparable to 10 Mbps Ethernet or better speeds (ie. less than 10 Mbps) in real world usage. Not good enough for DVD, but probably good enough for Divx. MP3 is relatively low bandwidth though, so that's gonna work for sure. I use it for streaming MP3 myself, but like I said, MP3 isn't taxing it very hard.

My setup.

Cable --> router:

1) Router --> 802.11b wireless bridge --> laptop
2) Router --> 100 Mbps Ethernet --> desktop
3) Router --> HomePNA bridge --> telephone lines --> MP3 receiver

Everything works great, and the wireless and HomePNA bridges are transparent to the router, as expected.

I've also used HomePNA with DSL and voice/fax all on the same phone line, with no significant signal degradation of any of the above. HomePNA is great if drilling holes in your walls is not an option. More reliable and faster than wireless 802.11b too (although I wouldn't give up wireless for anything).