laptop with 3com phoneline network possible?

[dmcgoy]

I'm trying to hook up two computers and a laptop in my house. The three comps are all far away from each other so stringing ethernet cables through and outside the house is not really an option.

I bought a 3com phoneline network and was surprised to see that the "nic" they include for the pcs use phonelines. Which means that that my laptop with an ethernet card can't really hookup. Is there any way to get around this? Do they make ethernet to phone line cables?

Thanks

 

[fergiboy]

They make home phone line adapters for labtops, this option might be expensive though. If you can connect your labtop to one of your other machines you could put a pci ethernet adapter into a machine and connect the labtop and the computer with a crossover patch cable.

 

[Workin']

If your laptop has a USB port you can get a phoneline networking adapter that will connect that way.

Otherwise you need an ethernet-to-pna bridge that will connect your phoneline network to an ethernet network. I think I've seen such a beast for around $200.

 

[Eug]

If your laptop has an extra PCMCIA slot or USB connector, you could buy a HomePNA adapter for cheap. However, the easiest solution is to get yourself a Linksys combination HomePNA 10/100 Ethernet PCMCIA card for about US$70, and sell your old laptop ethernet card. I have one and it's great, because Windows just reads it as one card. If you plug in Ethernet it works as Ethernet. If you plug in HomePNA it works as HomePNA - you don't have to tell windows to switch adapters. The only problem with it is that it only works at 1 Mbps in HomePNA mode. The single HomePNA solutions will do 6-7 Mbps (supposedly 10) for the PCMCIA, and maybe about 3 for the USB.

I use both Ethernet and HomePNA on my laptop.

Here is my HomePNA/Ethernet setup.