HomePlug AV (200Mbps)

[csmager]

At home we have two buildings - our house, and the Office/Garage. They're about 50 metres away.

At the moment, we have wireless in the house, using a Linksys WAP54G. There is a Linksys WET11 (wireless bridge) in the office, and another WAP54G on a different channel to give wireless access in the office.

This is far from ideal - I'd like the house to be linked to the office by CAT5. (Slight OT:As it happens, there is a lot of CAT5 running between the house and the office used for the phone system, and I'm sure there must be some spare... but I've no idea how I'd go about getting this looked into - any ideas?!)

As the 11Mbps link has crummy signal strength and quality, we don't get a lot of throughput. Plus it means I can't implement WPA-Radius, because the WET11 doesn't support it.

I was looking into HomePlug - the latest and greatest stuff offers 200Mbps, which must mean I'd get throughput similar to a 100Mbps CAT5 link. Is there anyway of finding whether it'd work between the buildings without having to buy it, be disappointed, then flog it?

I don't *think* we're on separate meters, and it says it should work over 200metres.

Thanks for any advice. I'd quite like to get this sorted, as the 11b wireless link is, to put it bluntly, crap.

 

[csmager]

I would too - but as I mentioned, I'm not sure what CAT5 we've got underground. And my dad's not a great fan of cables on the outside of the house - it was hard enough convincing him to let Sky put a dish up, let alone stringing a cable between two buildings!

 

[csmager]

You're probably on seperate rings though.

Most definitely. But according to all the HomePlug literature I've waded through online, that doesn't make the slightest difference. Different phases do, on the other hand.

Between the two buildings is either paving slabs or a driveway with tarmac & gravel on it. So me & a spade aren't going to achieve much. There's already a duct with CAT5 in it running from a BT box in the house to a junction box outside the office. BT lines come into the junction box and are connected to the house. The house has lines connected to the box that are connected to the office (for phone extensions in that building).

There's spare capacity, but I don't really know how I'd go about connecting up wires from the house to an RJ45 socket, and from the junction box to the office.... all beyond me, probably. I suppose BT are probably the only people who'd like to do it - and charge a fortune.

Last time I tried to get an electrician to let me use a pair to connect a new line for ADSL from one side of the house to the other, i confused the hell out of him. Had to get an ex-NTL engineer in to do it!

 

[csmager]

Will the HomePlug device work over different socket circuits ?
YES, Residential and small commercial buildings often have electrical circuits split between different parts of the building. For example: upstairs ring, downstairs ring, garage, conservatory etc... Devices connected to these different circuits will communicate without any problem. The only thing that seperates the circuits is fuse in the consumer unit. The fuse is simply a connection that breaks should anelectrical fault occur, therefore the HomePlug devices will see each other perfectly well.

The only situation when devices may not 'see' each other is if the building has separate physical 'phases' of electricity, this is not the same as different circuits, that work fine, as described above. However it is also possible to bridge these phases, please call to discuss.

 

[csmager]

It's possible they'd pick up the signal, but there's encryption.

 

[csmager]

I'm currently looking more closely into the ideal of using the existing cabling between the house and office.

Last time a BT engineer came, he said we could get another 8+ lines (can't remember the exact figure) into the house. That must mean we have at least 8 pairs free between the house and the junction box outside the office. 100Mbps ethernet only needs 2 pairs, iirc. So this may be a runner.

 

[csmager]

It depends what type of cable there is between the house and the office.

It's CAT5 around the house for the phone extensions. I'm not sure what's running underground, but I think it's 24 pair cable.