Phoneline USB Network

[Shantanu]

Here's my current setup. I've got a 400mhz PC hooked up to cable internet access in my room. There's my Dad's laptop in another room, which doesn't have a NIC. I want to share internet access between both of them. Since my father's computer doesn't have a NIC, and a conventional ethernet network would require too much wiring, I think the phoneline USB network is the way to go. Currently DLink has a 2 computer phoneline USB networking kit for $100, which I was thinking about getting.

Are there any drawbacks to this setup? Will the fact that my computer is being used as an "internet gateway" eat up a lot of CPU cycles? Will I be able to get a seperate IP address for my Dad's laptop? Is there a lot of latency involved in going through the phoneline? Thanks.

 

[Eug]

Dunno about USB per se, but on my setup there is minimal extra latency with the HomePNA setup. pings with the DOS utility are always listed as <10 ms.

See my post on the subject in terms of the ping utility and real world tests here.

By the way, why do you want to use USB on your primary PC?

 

[Shantanu]

<< By the way, why do you want to use USB on your primary PC? >>



How the hell else would you connect a USB networking device to your PC?

 

[Eug]

<< How the hell else would you connect a USB networking device to your PC? >>

Uh, you wouldn't. PCI HomePNA NICs getting cheap these days. HomePNA 2 PCI cards are only about $35 bux so overall it might even be cheaper to get a PCI card for the desktop and a USB one for the laptop. When you have the choice of using PCI vs USB for a high-bandwidth application, I'd suggest PCI.

 

[Shantanu]

Many of these peripherals do not seem to work with Windows 2000 (in this day and age!). I was about to purchase the 3com Homeconnect USB kit this afternoon at Best Buy when I realized that it did not work under Windows 2000. I found an even cheaper solution online from Netgear, which has the PCI PNA device for $20 (for my PC) and the USB PNA device for $30 (for the laptop). Unfortunatly, the PCI PNA device does not work under Windows 2000, though the USB device does. Still, for $60, I'm thinking about picking up two of the USB devices, which is the cheapest home networking solution thus far.

 

[Eug]

$30 is very cheap for USB. Where?

By the way, make sure they support the HomePNA 2 standard and not just HomePNA 1. They work fine together but the latter is only 1 Mbps. Great for internet and printer sharing but slow for sharing of large files.

The $35 I quoted was for a Linksys HomePNA 2 card, and that card does have support for Windows 2000.