Networking using the mains

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Hi folks,

Im thinking of networking my home through the mains? I am interested to hear if anyone here uses it or has used it and what they think about it.

Thanks in advance

 

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Yes I've used it in the past to network from one side of my house to the other, it certainly worked ok for me, not fast by any stretch but it worked OK. I think I had a pair of netgear plugs to start with, one of those died and then I bought just an ebuyer branded pair, which worked just as well.

I think you cannot use them on different ring main so if you have a ring main upstairs and a ringmain downstairs they wont work. however unless your a sparky (not CF sparky) then your not likely to know and its just a case of suck it and see.

Mine worked just fine in an old house with probably ancient wiring so buy a pair and see what happens.

 

I've got a netgear set at home, with a 4 port prioritised hub at the other end. It's just running the tv, blu-ray and xbox off it. Since I dont do a lot of gaming, I can't speak to the speed, but it seems fairly decent to me.

 

I've been looking into these recently.

I have to admit though, I've been completely put off by reviews stating that there is massive amounts of intererence from radios/DAB/dimmer switches, etc.

I had these in mind to connect the router upstairs to the media player downstairs to stream media to the TV. They come in 200Mb flavours now I think - not sure how speed/reliability are effected by the interference. (If any!?)

Is the interference as bad as they make out?

 

I think it depends really on lots of factors, its still a bit like wifi was when it first started creeping into homes years ago, you just had to buy it and see how far it went. As above its worked ok for me in the past again transfer speeds were not that great but it worked. because it works through the home wiring (which of course was never designed for data transfer all sorts of things may interfer with the signal (fridge motors and the like) I think there are too many variables to say whether it'll work correctly in each instance you just have to bite the bullet and give it a try.

If they dont work out theres always ebay

 

i have the belkin units running from the house to the garage to run my freenas server and they are on different rings mains

They still work although the light on the units changes from blue to amber and this means the speed is apparently slower as they are not on the same ring main

the freenas box can stream movies/audio to both the pc in the living room and the xbox upstairs at the same time without a problem so the speed must be decent enough for this

 

Mine didn't work at all on different rings. Even on the same ring going from one to another socket in the same room the signal was very poor. I bought Zyxel homeplugs that are supposed to be decent.

I think the quality of the wiring and the amount of interference can affect it. Even using a four way power adpater can affect it.
I think instances of home plugs working through your fusebox and onto another ring are extremely rare and unlikely.

I have a three phase supply so maybe the people reporting this have a single phase supply ? However many people also miss report multiple rings, when really both home plugs are on same ring, you'd really need to check with an electrician (which I did).

So was complete waste time and money for me. Ended up running Cat5 through the loft, cost about the same and now 100% decent signal.

 

Thanks for the replys guys, my bro is a spark so he can tell me about the ring thing...but i think i will buy them and as you guys said "suck it ans see"

 

If your bro is a spark he can probably help you run some cat5, the homeplugs just make sense for rented accommodation IMHO.