Homeplugs + wireless?

[RollerBall]

I've just setup Virgin Media ADSL in my student house and unfortunately not only is the connection terribly slow in the evenings but my wireless signal isn't that great upstairs in my room. I'm looking at going wired because I can't afford to lose any speed from the crappy 2-3Mbps we get in the evenings.

I was originally going to get a homeplug + a double homeplug for my room (X360 + PC) however I'd like to be able to wirelessly connect my netbook/phone when I want to as well.

So, I figured I'd pick up the OCUK wireless homeplug kit.

That way I could connect my PC via wire (which is most important to me) and my Xbox via this old Belkin wireless thing I have (can only connect to WEP or open so I previously couldn't use it before) and my netbook/phone by it's inbuilt wire when I want to.

Thoughts?

 

[Orcvader]

Virgin ADSL is one of the worse broadband packages you can pick. Sky or Be LLU would've been better. Not sure what modem/router Virgin uses for ADSL but their superhub's wireless is apparantly very poor.

If the router and your room are on different floors then there's a chance homeplugs may not work. The upstairs and downstairs could both be on seperate electrical curcuits, meaning the homeplugs might not even be able to connect to each other.

I would buy a new router instead or a wireless extender instead if the homeplugs doesn't work.

 

[RollerBall]

Yeah. I found out about VMs reputation after I already had a contract with them so that's not really helpful.

I am on a different floor, anyway I can test homeplug compatability?

I'm not sure how well a new router would cope. I'm not very far away in terms of distance its just a lot walls and people connecting to the router. I'd say at most its 10 meters.

The stock router is a netgear DGM1000.

 

[Orcvader]

The homeplugs will find each other as long as they're on the same curcuit. You just need to wait until you recieve them and if it connects, you're lucky enough to have the two floors on the same electrical curcuit. If not, then it seems the wiring in the house is too complex for homeplugs.

Any chance you can set up the Belkin close to you but close enough to connect to the virgin router via ethernet, then connect to the wireless on that? Although WEP is a pretty poor security algorithm. This would be the cheapest option. So it will go like this:

[Internet]------------[DGM1000]------------[Belkin])))))))))))[Your PC]

------ = Cable
))))))) = Wireless

 

[RollerBall]

The Belkin is a receiver although I could just do a similar but reverse method. Put it on the landing and run an Ethernet to my comp from it.