Homeplugs, worth spending the extra?

Devrij · 22 Apr 2011 at 01:23

Wood floors or I would. Did that in my last place. Direct cable is definitely out

Zarf · 22 Apr 2011 at 07:31

the 200Mb/s ones are the ones to go for, much faster in practice. My 85Mb/s set which showed a perfect sync in the monitoring software only actually achieved around 15Mb/s throughput, whereas my D-Link 200Mb/s set runs at the full speeds.

Glaucus · 22 Apr 2011 at 11:31

Home plugs are great and certainly worth getting 200mbs as you wnt get anywhere near full speed. Would never go back to wireless for fixed pcs.

Cables are great but can't easily be installed and home plugs work great.

Duke_ · 22 Apr 2011 at 14:23

d_brennen said:
99% sure it would all be on the same phase. Do you have your own electric meter?

Phase is not the same thing as ring circuit. You're right, the house is highly likely to be all on one phase but depending on how many rooms the sockets would not necessarily be on the same circuit.

@Devrij - if you want to check the sockets are on the same circuit look in your consumer unit (aka fusebox). The circuits should be labelled explaining what they all do e.g. 'upstairs bedroom ring mains' / 'kitchen dining room lighting circuit'. You should be able to see if they are on the same circuit. If that's not clear wait till everyone else is out turn off all the breakers individually then turn on the breaker which powers one of the sockets - if the other socket is still live then you know they're on the same circuit. If you don't know which one serves the sockets it's likely to be a higher value breaker (32A probably) not 6A which is probably a lighting circuit. Use trial and error to find the right one. While everything in a consumer unit should be shrouded and safe, if you're not happy playing with it I'd stay well clear!

After all that even if they're on different circuits it'll probably work fine, just not quite as fast.
Cheers

gothic_hobbit · 22 Apr 2011 at 18:03

Aren't these going to get banned due to interfering with aviation / police signals ?

philjohn · 22 Apr 2011 at 18:15

I was going to get homeplugs, but after reading that they basically turn your unshielded electrical wiring into a giant broadcast antenna, obliterating short wave signals in the area, I decided that wireless was the better way to go.

Devrij · 22 Apr 2011 at 19:00

philjohn said:
I was going to get homeplugs, but after reading that they basically turn your unshielded electrical wiring into a giant broadcast antenna, obliterating short wave signals in the area, I decided that wireless was the better way to go.

Wait, so is using these going to kill all mobile and WiFi signal or just radio?

Naan_H · 22 Apr 2011 at 19:01

Devrij said:
Wait, so is using these going to kill all mobile and WiFi signal or just radio?

All my wifi and radios work absolutely fine

philjohn · 22 Apr 2011 at 19:19

they can intefere with people listening to short wave nearby (which includes ham radio users).

I remember seeing a few videos like the following:

dbeckett · 23 Apr 2011 at 10:39

He's listening on SW radio-short wave, which I doubt should be a problem to most people unless theyre a amateur radio/spy, but each to their own

101001101 · 23 Apr 2011 at 16:09

d_brennen said:
^ and if laying cables isn't desired or possible (rented accommodation) what would you suggest?

Laying cable without putting it behind walls, i.e all over the carpet since likely one day you'll move anyway just throw that bad boy all over the floor

Girls love it too

d_brennen · 23 Apr 2011 at 16:11

101001101 said:
Laying cable without putting it behind walls, i.e all over the carpet since likely one day you'll move anyway just throw that bad boy all over the floor

Girls love it too

Must suggest that one to the wife

Razor-BladE · 23 Apr 2011 at 16:39

I bought the TP-201's which come in sub-£40. Have yet to try them out, as I don't need to use them yet but will do later on. Hopefully I'll get decent speeds!

RJC · 23 Apr 2011 at 17:33

Been using Devolo home plugs for the past 6 months and these have never missed a beat, according to the software I am synching at 196mb/s.

Had some Belkin ones and these kept dropping every so often.

setter · 23 Apr 2011 at 17:43

Bought a set of comtrend 200mbps homeplugs, cant get them working for love nor money. Had to resort to a very long ethernet cable.

Nightglow · 23 Apr 2011 at 17:55

Setter, I have a pair of Comtrend 200mbps, which took several attemps before they worked,easier to setup with two people, no I could run up stairs in time.

setter · 23 Apr 2011 at 17:57

Will certainly give that a try, thankfully the two plugs are only about 15 feet apart.

Nightglow · 23 Apr 2011 at 18:06

Setter, one other thing, I did a factory reset with my Comtrend 9020
Remember the plug with serial Number & letter A has to be a AP ( Access Point) or they will never work. Took me a while to realise this problem, once I reset it, all was ok.

http://download.comtrend.com/PG9020 BT QIG.pdf

setter · 23 Apr 2011 at 18:12

Yep, my A lettered plug is the one connected to the router, (netgear dg834pn). Will do a factory reset and try them again. Thanks for your advice Nightglow.

ubersonic · 23 Apr 2011 at 22:46

gothic_hobbit said:
Aren't these going to get banned due to interfering with aviation / police signals ?

philjohn said:
I was going to get homeplugs, but after reading that they basically turn your unshielded electrical wiring into a giant broadcast antenna, obliterating short wave signals in the area, I decided that wireless was the better way to go.

philjohn said:
they can intefere with people listening to short wave nearby (which includes ham radio users).

I remember seeing a few videos like the following:

Its a myth, and sadly a very common one, the ones that cause the interference are not Homeplug adapters.

There is some confusion here! Comtrend / BT adapters are NOT HomePlug compliant!

Freesat recommend HomePlug AV products, they made their choice carefully - and remember they are part funded by the BBC (not known for being relaxed about interference in the radio spectrum - they even tried to have ADSL banned a few years ago..!!).

Comtrend/DS2 products emit a continuous 1k howl 24/7 and some hams claim that it is apparent up to 500M away in the right conditions. DS2 chipsets were originally designed for Broadband Access over Powerlines (BPL) the idea was as an alternative to xDSL or Cable broadband, but the technical issues and high cost in comparison to the alternatives have never been solved. It was not designed for or ideal for home networking.

DS2 made some serious errors in the past, such as releasing firmwares that allowed end users to remove notches (which were meant to be there to stop interference in licensed / amateur radio bands) which enabled higher bandwidth. As you can expect, this caused an increased level of angst amongst radio amateurs..!

HomePlug technology is endorsed by the ARRL - the American Radio Relay League, the largest organisation of Radio Amateurs in the US, who worked closely with the HomePlug Alliance in defining products & specifications that would not cause these issues.