Powerline networking rocks my world.

[Eug]

I moved into a big house last year which was built in two parts. The first part has the home office, and that's where I have my DSL. The second part was an addition which includes a garage. The garage was converted into a home theatre room, and that's where I put my 720p projector and my Xbox 360.

I had had 802.11g wireless, but the Xbox 360 had problems getting a reliable signal from the home office. I thought about setting up a WDS 802.11n network, but that would be quite spendy, and it still could suffer from the quirks of wireless in general. Then I bought an Airport Express, and decided I hated Apple's wireless implementation. I could go third party but the same drawbacks apply (but the implementation may be better).

Finally I took a chance and got some cheap refurb "200 Mbps" powerline networking modules: Netgear HDX101, for about US$36 each plus shipping.

I am shocked at how well they worked. When plugged into the same electrical circuit in the same room, the config software was reporting a theoretical max of about 150 Mbps. Now, I didn't actually try to verify that because I wasn't going to be using them in the same room.

However, even with the plugs on opposite ends of the house, the config software is reporting about 50 Mbps. What about real life speeds? Well, I'm getting 30 Mbps using simple file transfers with OS X. I transferred a 680 MB (over 713000000 bytes) in 3 minutes and 6 seconds, with the adapters configured for TCP priority. In fact, with the same settings I can stream QuickTime H.264 1080p video direct to my Xbox 360. In about 20 minutes of HD viewing, I saw it stutter just once for a split-second, but otherwise it was smooth as silk. Perhaps that would go away if I set the adapters for UDP priority, I don't know.

The surprising part is not that it works, but that it works so well, considering the second part of the house where the Xbox 360 is located is actually on different electrical panel. So, basically the route is: Home office circuit --> electrical panel --> outside --> different electrical panel --> home theatre room circuit. The fact that I can get rock solid Cat 5 type speeds totally blows my mind. I was hoping for 10-Base-T speeds (6 Mbps?) at this distance but I get several times that. This means I have enough bandwidth to stream Apple QuickTime HD H.264 trailers (like this 720p one or this 1080p one) or full bitrate DVD. And it of course works awesomely for iTunes music streaming. It literally rocks my world... errr... garage.

Latency is pretty good too. It's around 75 ms when pinging the internet benchmark sites. Good enough for good online gaming. I haven't tried pinging my machines on the local network, but by the sounds of it it will be very fast. I'll try that later. And obviously, I can easily max out my internet connection of 4+ Mbps.

These powerline networking adapters are protected by my own encryption password BTW, so I'm not worried about my neighbour hopping on the network. This required installing the Windows config software because there is no Mac client, but I have a cheap PC that I leave in my closet for this. The Windows client does not work on Parallels in OS X. (They come with a pre-existing password, but that doesn't help me if the neighbour buys one too.)

I will point out though that the speed depended up on which plug I used. In my home theatre room (garage) there are two electrical circuits. I have all my home theatre equipment on one circuit. When I tried using that circuit for powerline networking, my speeds were much slower, even with the home theatre equipment off. I guess all the noise there really mucks things up. However, on the other circuit I get 30 Mbps, even if I have my space heater (which is on that circuit) turned on. That space heater draws about 12 amps. Furthermore, in my home office, the powerline adapter is on the same circuit as all my computer hardware, including two computers (with three screens), a fax machine, a couple of printers, and a bunch of other stuff including a cable box and an LCD TV.

The other issue is that these units are NOT HomePlug compliant. The only HomePlug compatible hardware I could find on that was comparable to these Netgear HDX101 units were the HomePlug AV units. Unfortunately, those are really expensive.

Anyways, I'm overjoyed with these units, and I just ordered a couple more.

 

[Eug]

BTW, let's say I wanted to add a wireless access to every room that has a powerline networking adapter in it. Is it possible to do this with one network SSID common to all of them, without resorting to WDS units?

The reason I ask is because my DSL router has built-in 802.11g but does not support WDS. However, I don't want to give up that router's wireless, because it is the most stable 802.11g I have ever used. I've gone through a bazillion routers and this one is simply more stable than all the others. It just works.

In my home theatre garage, I have another wireless router which I've attached to the powerline network adapter. I turned off DHCP on that router, so it acts as the wired switch to my computer and my Xbox 360 there, and I also turned on its WiFi radio so I can get strong reliable wireless in that room too if necessary. However, I currently have it set to a different SSID, so if I take my laptop to the home theatre garage, I need to switch the wireless network selection, even though ultimately it's actually the same LAN.

What would happen if I simply named both networks with the same SSID? Would it freak out or give me weird and unpredictable results? Would having them on different channels (or on the same channel) make a difference?

The good news is I never take my laptop to the home theatre garage so actually it's not a big deal, but I do have my iPhone with me all the time so it could come in handy. With the iPhone in the garage, I might get 1 bar of signal from the primary wireless router (which is in the home office), but obviously with the secondary wireless router in that garage I get full bars.

If it takes multiple WDS units to make a single wireless network with the same SSID (even if I have Ethernet next to each router), then I won't bother because what I have now works. However, if I can do this easily without WDS units, then I'll pick up one more $20 refurb wireless access point to add wireless to the backyard. Actually, I might do that anyway. Even if what I propose didn't work, I could simply name it with a 3rd different SSID.

P.S. I forgot to mention: The powerline network worked beautifully even with my garden shed's electrical jack.

EDIT:

Hope someone can confirm this, but according teh intarnets I can simply rename the second access point's SSID to the same as the first one, but just keep the access point on a different channel to prevent conflicts, and then everything will be fine. I'll give that a go.

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah HPNA is one of these "Srange things".

It can do wonderful for few :thumbsup:, and Not so well for others :thumbsdown:.

I.e., it is not really a universal solution that One can always count On but when it fits it provides good service.

 

[Eug]

Not HomePNA.

Powerline networking. And my particular flavour is not HomePlug compatible.

P.S. I do have a HomePNA 2.0 bridge from Netgear and it worked very, very well, but I haven't used it in years. I would have considered using HomePNA 3 but I can't seem to find any HomePNA 3 products anywhere.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Eug
Not HomePNA.

Powerline networking. And my particular flavour is not HomePlug compatible.

Sorry I made a mistake, I meant PowerLine. Othewise, the content of my post stands.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, I would agree with that.

In my case, the first part of the house was built in the 1990s, and the second part of the house was built just a few years ago, so all the wiring is fairly new.

In fact, the plug in the garage that the powerline network adapter is on is brand new. (I ran a second electrical circuit to the room because if I ran my subwoofer and my space heater at the same time it'd trip the breaker.)

I betcha if I had circa 1949 wiring my results might be much worse.

 

[weeber]

Eug,

I'm right there with you. I got the Linksys version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833124096

Like you, it rocks my world. Previously, I had my main desktop and HTPC networked wirelessly, but the damn thing was so flaky I would lucky if I could stream low-res AVI's, much less HDTV stuff. I was considering upgrading my wireless to MIMO pre-N, but got these instead and they solved all my problems. I'm now seriously considering getting more so I can network in a NAS or some sort of file server. I know these things work for some people and fail miserably for others, so it's a YMMV situation. But for me it's awesome.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Eug
However, even with the plugs on opposite ends of the house, the config software is reporting about 50 Mbps. What about real life speeds? Well, I'm getting 30 Mbps using simple file transfers with OS X. I transferred a 680 MB (over 713000000 bytes) in 3 minutes and 6 seconds, with the adapters configured for TCP priority. In fact, with the same settings I can stream QuickTime H.264 1080p video direct to my Xbox 360. In about 20 minutes of HD viewing, I saw it stutter just once for a split-second, but otherwise it was smooth as silk. Perhaps that would go away if I set the adapters for UDP priority, I don't know.

The surprising part is not that it works, but that it works so well, considering the second part of the house where the Xbox 360 is located is actually on different electrical panel. So, basically the route is: Home office circuit --> electrical panel --> outside --> different electrical panel --> home theatre room circuit. The fact that I can get rock solid Cat 5 type speeds totally blows my mind. I was hoping for 10-Base-T speeds (6 Mbps?) at this distance but I get several times that. This means I have enough bandwidth to stream Apple QuickTime HD H.264 trailers (like this 720p one or this 1080p one) or full bitrate DVD. And it of course works awesomely for iTunes music streaming. It literally rocks my world... errr... garage.

Latency is pretty good too. It's around 75 ms when pinging the internet benchmark sites. Good enough for good online gaming. I haven't tried pinging my machines on the local network, but by the sounds of it it will be very fast. I'll try that later. And obviously, I can easily max out my internet connection of 4+ Mbps.

Some more testing.

1) I decided to investigate the source of the HD stuttering on my Xbox 360, streaming from the iMac. I first noticed that nothing under 10 Mbps was a problem, but some 12 Mbps files would occasionally stall. So, I figured the network's minimum speed was 10 Mbps-ish, even if I'm averaging 30 Mbps for data file transfers. However, this is not the case.

I tried streaming from the iMac to a MacBook, and 12 Mbps H.264 was perfectly smooth.

It turns out the problem was the Xbox 360 itself. It only supports Quicktime H.264 up to 10 Mbps before it starts having problems (which is odd considering that it plays much higher bitrate H.264 HD DVD completely glitch free).

2) Pings across my internal network are usually between 3 and 8 ms. Nice.

3) I am putting a wireless access point in each of the major rooms with the power line networking. Some may think that's kinda redundant, but this way I get rock solid and fast Ethernet for my desktops and Xbox 360, but also get full strength wireless for my laptops and my iPhone. I don't have to worry about this flaky WDS 802.11g stuff. (Furthermore, the wireless routers give me extra wired Ethernet ports in each room.) I just buy a cheap wireless 802.11g router, turn off DHCP support (and let my main router do the DHCP), put the routers on different channels, give them the same WPA password and name them with the exact same SSID. Works great so far, as my laptops and iPhone switch seamlessly between the access points automagically. I'll report back once I have another access point up. (Hopefully the third access point will give me full 5 bar wireless everywhere in the house.)

Originally posted by: weeber
Eug,

I'm right there with you. I got the Linksys version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833124096

Like you, it rocks my world. Previously, I had my main desktop and HTPC networked wirelessly, but the damn thing was so flaky I would lucky if I could stream low-res AVI's, much less HDTV stuff. I was considering upgrading my wireless to MIMO pre-N, but got these instead and they solved all my problems. I'm now seriously considering getting more so I can network in a NAS or some sort of file server. I know these things work for some people and fail miserably for others, so it's a YMMV situation. But for me it's awesome.

Sweet. If these power line networking vendors could market themselves better and get pricing down, they have a huge winner on their hands. The other benefit with yours is that it is abides by the HomePlug AV standard.

I was considering those, but they cost a lot more.

 

[Eug]

Some numbers (all through same router):

Ethernet - 84 Mbps
Powerline in same room - 39 Mbps
Powerline across house - 30 Mbps
802.11g in same room - 22 Mbps

Graph

 

[Engineer]

I've been waiting for these to go back in stock for about a week now (Panasonic 190Mbit powerline ethernet kit (2 unit) at $37.99 + shipping). The 802.11g in my house seems to have issues in my bedroom....

 

[Lemon law]

Pardon me if I make the following observation about powerline networking in general.

Its all well and fine to utilize electrical powerlines to distribute internet in house, and if its better and cheaper than wireless alternatives in house, its great for the individual user.

But as a poor broadband starved smuck, delivering broadband by existing technologies, be it phone lines or powerlines, its still a signal noise problem that becomes infinitely more complicated when the length of copper lines becomes more than just a few 100 feet as the example in this post and starts to become thousands and thousands of feet in the real world.

 

[Eug]

The previous owners of this place had the forethought to run a power line out to the back of the yard when they built a gazebo there. I've now run powerline networking out there. I then attached a wireless router, which gives me full-strength wireless there. I had tried sticking a wireless access point in a window of the house facing the gazebo, but at that distance I'd get no signal (or else a very unreliable signal). (I have a big yard.) Powerline solves the problem simply, with an uber stable connection.

Front view <-- What I see when I'm sitting in the gazebo. The blue thing is a wireless access point.
Rear view <-- Not seen, unless you specifically go to the back.

I transferred a 680 MB file in 7 minutes and 28 seconds on that connection (via wireless), for a speed of 12.7 Mbps. That's slower than any of my in-house connections, but hey, it's not as if I care about streaming HD to my garden.

I wonder how long this will last out in the elements, but at least it's covered from the rain, and I'll bring it in when it gets cold outside.

 

[skyking]

Thanks for the heads-up Eug. I use wireless now, but my garage is in a difficult location. I might try this for connecting a computer workbench out there.

 

[Eug]

What I've learned from perusing the net, and from my own experiences:

1) The signal is stronger if it's on the same electrical panel. (It's the strongest if it's on the same circuit, like in the same room.)
2) Certain plugs work better than others. So try multiple outlets.
3) Using power bars/surge suppressors really suppresses the powerline networking signal. Even in the same room, if you put it on a power bar, the transmission speed drops way, way down. The downside of this is you have a lot of electrical storm. The adapters are exposed to potential surges.
4) I get the impression from reading the net, you should avoid the 14 Mbps hardware completely. Also you'd probably want to avoid the 85 Mbps hardware too, and jump straight to the 200 Mbps hardware.
5) My Netgear hardware works, but is not compliant with the HomePlug AV 200 Mbps standard. If you can find cheap HomePlug AV 200 Mbps hardware, then that might be a better idea, since the equipment may be more interoperable with hardware from other companies should you decide to add more units in the future. I didn't go that route though since the Netgear HDX101 refurb hardware was much easier to find and much cheaper. (I purchased 6, 5 for active use, and one as a backup.)

 

[Griffinhart]

Unfortunately, Ethernet over power lines do not work well for everyone.

I picked up a set a while back and had nothing but bad luck in my house.

Downstairs to upstairs the connection was terribly slow. In the same room, it was fine. I tried using them to give a netgear MP-101 media player connectivity. It worked plenty fast for it, but it also, for some reason, added noise to anything being played.

On the other hand, my Friends mother recently got a broadband connection in her house, but her laptop was across the house from her wireless router provided by Verizon. She just couldn't get a reliable signal to the room she was using. So, I took the very same power line adapters and everything worked exceptionally well for her.

I think in my case the difference was the age of the wiring. They just didn't like the 40+ year old wiring in my house.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
Unfortunately, Ethernet over power lines do not work well for everyone.

I picked up a set a while back and had nothing but bad luck in my house.

Downstairs to upstairs the connection was terribly slow. In the same room, it was fine. I tried using them to give a netgear MP-101 media player connectivity. It worked plenty fast for it, but it also, for some reason, added noise to anything being played.

On the other hand, my Friends mother recently got a broadband connection in her house, but her laptop was across the house from her wireless router provided by Verizon. She just couldn't get a reliable signal to the room she was using. So, I took the very same power line adapters and everything worked exceptionally well for her.

I think in my case the difference was the age of the wiring. They just didn't like the 40+ year old wiring in my house.

Probably, but what about the hardware you used?

Were you using old 14 Mbps or 85 Mbps hardware?

I'm using the latest gen so-called "200 Mbps" hardware.

 

[JackMDS]

Both Powerline and Wireless suffer from the same type of trouble. Environmental Noise.

It is not the exact same kind of noise but it is trouble in both.

While in Wireless there is enough flexibility to try to overcome or compensate for noise, with Power line it is whole or None.

The only thing that you can do is plug the thing either it would work well or it would not.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Both Powerline and Wireless suffer from the same type of trouble. Environmental Noise.

It is not the exact same kind of noise but it is trouble in both.

While in Wireless there is enough flexibility to try to overcome or compensate for noise, with Power line it is whole or None.

The only thing that you can do is plug the thing either it would work well or it would not.

Well, it may in part be a matter of degree.

Even the comparatively poor results I get in my gazebo in the garden are better than what people get at max speed on 14 Mbps hardware.

Just guessing here... but I'm thinking if someone were to get only say 300 Kbps on 14 Mbps powerline networking, they might be able to get 3 Mbps on 200 Mbps hardware.

 

[Engineer]

Reading around the net and thinking about it, there are typically two 120v lines entering your house (240V when going across them). If both outlets in the home share the same 120V line, signal strength should be pretty good (speed wise). It was noted that if on seperate legs of the 120v lines, you could place a 2uF non polarized capacitor across the two 120V legs to increase throughput as the 2uF cap would let the signal pass while not effecting the regular AC. I have not tried this and only recommend doing it after reading up on it yourself and if you attempt it, please use extreme caution working around the breaker box.

By the way, not sure if the above effects this model or not...was reading about another brand for the above trinket.

 

[spidey07]

Engineer,

The power companies have been trying desperately to provide multimegabit services regarding voice, video and data. So much so they are using a similar model to hybrid fiber coax that has been working so well for the cable companies for the last 10 years.

My main comment is the power of digital signal processing keeps getting better and better, cheaper and cheaper.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Reading around the net and thinking about it, there are typically two 120v lines entering your house (240V when going across them). If both outlets in the home share the same 120V line, signal strength should be pretty good (speed wise).

For those of us with two separate panels (actually 3 - 2 mains and a sub), you're saying they're still likely on the same two 120V trunks? Just wondering. I'm not an engineer.

It was noted that if on seperate legs of the 120v lines, you could place a 2uF non polarized capacitor across the two 120V legs to increase throughput as the 2uF cap would let the signal pass while not effecting the regular AC. I have not tried this and only recommend doing it after reading up on it yourself and if you attempt it, please use extreme caution working around the breaker box.

By the way, not sure if the above effects this model or not...was reading about another brand for the above trinket.

I'm not sure what this means.

My guess... You're suggesting to bridge the two 120 V lines for powerline networking, but with a device that prevents shorting out the two lines? Would that even be up to code?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Engineer
Reading around the net and thinking about it, there are typically two 120v lines entering your house (240V when going across them). If both outlets in the home share the same 120V line, signal strength should be pretty good (speed wise).

For those of us with two separate panels (actually 3 - 2 mains and a sub), you're saying they're still likely on the same two 120V trunks? Just wondering. I'm not an engineer.

It was noted that if on seperate legs of the 120v lines, you could place a 2uF non polarized capacitor across the two 120V legs to increase throughput as the 2uF cap would let the signal pass while not effecting the regular AC. I have not tried this and only recommend doing it after reading up on it yourself and if you attempt it, please use extreme caution working around the breaker box.

By the way, not sure if the above effects this model or not...was reading about another brand for the above trinket.

I'm not sure what this means.

My guess... You're suggesting to bridge the two 120 V lines for powerline networking, but with a device that prevents shorting out the two lines? Would that even be up to code?

There are two hots (120v), one neutral and a ground (neutral tied to ground) bus bar(s) in your breaker box (every one of them that I've seen). The breakers (from top to bottom) alternate which 120V hot line it uses so every other breaker uses one of the 120V lines while the one right below it uses the other 120V line and they alternate back and forth(That's why a 240V breaker works as it uses two slots therefore using BOTH 120V lines). If you place your powerline networking device #1 on a plug that uses the first 120V line and your powerline networking device #2 on a plug that uses the second 120V line, they are not sharing the same "hot" leg of the wiring (They do share the same neutral/ground lines however). By not sharing the same circuit, the signal strengh could be cut down or completely removed. By placing a very small non polarized capacitor across the two 120 legs in the panel, you're creating a filtered bridge that would let the signal pass from one 120V line to the other 120V line, which should give you a better signal if using plugs on opposite 120V lines for your powerline networking devices.

As for code, it probably wouldn't be up to code but a cap that small shouldn't be much of a concern anyway. Again, I've not read about using a capacitor on this particular product so it may operate somewhat different in how it transmits it's signal (maybe uses the neutral line for transmitting so it might not matter anyway).

 

[Eug]

That may explain my results in my home theatre room.

I put my powerline networking adapter on one set of plugs and I got a solid network connection, but it was relatively slow. (Note that this plug also had my home theatre equipment on it.)

I then put the powerline networking adapter on another set of plugs in the same room that was on a different circuit. My speeds went up dramatically. I had an electrician add the second circuit to the room because if I turned on my home theatre system and my portable electric heater at the same time, I'd trip the breaker.

Interestingly, for this second circuit where the powerline networking adapter and heater reside together, to my surprise the network transfer speed doesn't change at all whether or not I turn on the heater.

Anyways, if it's not up to code, I personally wouldn't do anything like that, even if it's minor. I'd hate to have a fire, and then have my insurance company decline the claim.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Eug
That may explain my results in my home theatre room.

I put my powerline networking adapter on one set of plugs and I got a solid network connection, but it was relatively slow. (Note that this plug also had my home theatre equipment on it.)

I then put the powerline networking adapter on another set of plugs in the same room that was on a different circuit. My speeds went up dramatically. I had an electrician add the second circuit to the room because if I turned on my home theatre system and my portable electric heater at the same time, I'd trip the breaker.

Interestingly, for this second circuit where the powerline networking adapter and heater reside together, to my surprise the network transfer speed doesn't change at all whether or not I turn on the heater.

Anyways, if it's not up to code, I personally wouldn't do anything like that, even if it's minor. I'd hate to have a fire, and then have my insurance company decline the claim.

Want to see if the other plug is indeed causing a slowdown on your networking? Move the adaptor back to the "slower" plug and test to make sure it's still slow. Turn on your "electric" oven or dryer and then retest and see if the speed goes up?! (It just might)!

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
Unfortunately, Ethernet over power lines do not work well for everyone.

I picked up a set a while back and had nothing but bad luck in my house.

Downstairs to upstairs the connection was terribly slow. In the same room, it was fine. I tried using them to give a netgear MP-101 media player connectivity. It worked plenty fast for it, but it also, for some reason, added noise to anything being played.

On the other hand, my Friends mother recently got a broadband connection in her house, but her laptop was across the house from her wireless router provided by Verizon. She just couldn't get a reliable signal to the room she was using. So, I took the very same power line adapters and everything worked exceptionally well for her.

I think in my case the difference was the age of the wiring. They just didn't like the 40+ year old wiring in my house.

Probably, but what about the hardware you used?

Were you using old 14 Mbps or 85 Mbps hardware?

I'm using the latest gen so-called "200 Mbps" hardware.

I was using 200Mbps hardware. Like I said, it works like a champ for my friends Mother, it just didn't work well in my house.