dLAN

Hi Group,

I'm very interested in this type of networking, basically it solves all my
problems at once. I've tried wireless at home and though I've had some
success, it's too unreliable. It is surprising given that my house was
constructed quite recently, but I guess Wi-fi was not on the developers'
minds!

Basically there is a range of products which I think gives me the best of
both worlds, made by Devolo. You can plug in the adapter to any electrical
socket and you have network/internet access from your mains. I think this
is a fantastic concept. And if I want wireless for any room, they even have
a wireless version of the adapter which you simply plug in to the electrical
socket and it gives you a wireless access point.

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be an advertisement for dLAN and if you're in a
position to answer this question you probably know all this anyway.

I was wondering however how well this works in practice. "There has to be a
catch", I told myself, and apart from the obvious one which is cost (but
well worth the investment I think), I wonder whether you can get speeds
comparable to the traditional wired solution.

Also, Devolo also sell a "high speed" version which they are marketing as a
way to stream audio and video around the house. Is there a genuine
difference or is this feasible with the "normal" version?

Many thanks,

Tanel.

nospam wrote:

> Hi Group,
>
> I'm very interested in this type of networking, basically it solves all my
> problems at once. I've tried wireless at home and though I've had some
> success, it's too unreliable. It is surprising given that my house was
> constructed quite recently, but I guess Wi-fi was not on the developers'
> minds!
>
> Basically there is a range of products which I think gives me the best of
> both worlds, made by Devolo. You can plug in the adapter to any
> electrical
> socket and you have network/internet access from your mains. I think this
> is a fantastic concept. And if I want wireless for any room, they even
> have a wireless version of the adapter which you simply plug in to the
> electrical socket and it gives you a wireless access point.
>
> Anyway, this wasn't meant to be an advertisement for dLAN and if you're in
> a position to answer this question you probably know all this anyway.
>
> I was wondering however how well this works in practice. "There has to be
> a catch", I told myself, and apart from the obvious one which is cost (but
> well worth the investment I think), I wonder whether you can get speeds
> comparable to the traditional wired solution.
>
> Also, Devolo also sell a "high speed" version which they are marketing as
> a
> way to stream audio and video around the house. Is there a genuine
> difference or is this feasible with the "normal" version?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Tanel.

They do work, and work well. As you comment, an expensive solution however.
Better to create a wired network if your DIY skills are OK!

There are currently three speeds available.

The 200Mbps units will stream audio and video easily. The 85Mbps ones will
also do it, unless you are transferring large files or downloading at the
same time. The original 14Mbps work perfectly well for a network used for
web browsing and file transfers, but would struggle to stream video.

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

> They do work, and work well. As you comment, an expensive solution
however.
> Better to create a wired network if your DIY skills are OK!

Well my DIY is ok, but if I add up the cost of the time I would spend and
the cutting/fixing etc then it probably works out around the same. Plus the
wife probably wouldn't be too happy with cables running all around the
house!

> There are currently three speeds available.
>
> The 200Mbps units will stream audio and video easily. The 85Mbps ones will
> also do it, unless you are transferring large files or downloading at the
> same time. The original 14Mbps work perfectly well for a network used for
> web browsing and file transfers, but would struggle to stream video.

When you say "large files", what sort of size are we talking? Also, does
the actual size of the file affect how quickly it can be streamed? I
thought that streaming meant you have a constant stream of data packets so
the actual file size would not be too important. Have I got this wrong?

Tanel.

nospam wrote:

>> They do work, and work well. As you comment, an expensive solution
> however.
>> Better to create a wired network if your DIY skills are OK!
>
> Well my DIY is ok, but if I add up the cost of the time I would spend and
> the cutting/fixing etc then it probably works out around the same. Plus
> the wife probably wouldn't be too happy with cables running all around the
> house!
>
>> There are currently three speeds available.
>>
>> The 200Mbps units will stream audio and video easily. The 85Mbps ones
>> will also do it, unless you are transferring large files or downloading
>> at the same time. The original 14Mbps work perfectly well for a network
>> used for web browsing and file transfers, but would struggle to stream
>> video.
>
> When you say "large files", what sort of size are we talking? Also, does
> the actual size of the file affect how quickly it can be streamed? I
> thought that streaming meant you have a constant stream of data packets so
> the actual file size would not be too important. Have I got this wrong?
>
> Tanel.

What I meant was that if you are streaming video from the internet, and
started to transfer a file of several Gigabytes between machines in your
network, it would be likely that the video would suffer. Note that the
quoted speeds for the devices are not usually obtainable in practice.

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

> What I meant was that if you are streaming video from the internet, and
> started to transfer a file of several Gigabytes between machines in your
> network, it would be likely that the video would suffer. Note that the
> quoted speeds for the devices are not usually obtainable in practice.

I see, so basically provided we don't "clog up" the network's bandwidth with
file transfers, streaming from the internet on the 85Mbps is fine.

But I could download a video on to the harddrive of the PC, then stream that
on the network without any problem to another PC/video device, right? And
is the 200Mbps enough to carry an HD signal?

Oh, and I forgot to ask - the wireless plug that you can link in with all
this - do you know if it is better than your average wireless router?
Reason being I might get one of these too for added flexibility but if it is
going to be crap then I won't really bother. I presume you can't get
anywhere near 85Mbps, let alone 200 Mbps with the wireless plug.

Thanks for your time.

Tanel.

"Tanel Kagan" <tanelkagan@(nospam)hotmail.com> declared for all the
world to hear...
> Oh, and I forgot to ask - the wireless plug that you can link in with all
> this - do you know if it is better than your average wireless router?

Eh?

A homeplug doesn't have any routing functions, it's just a point to plug
a network cable into.
--
Regards
Jon

> > Oh, and I forgot to ask - the wireless plug that you can link in with
all
> > this - do you know if it is better than your average wireless router?
>
> Eh?
>
> A homeplug doesn't have any routing functions, it's just a point to plug
> a network cable into.

Yes, but there is one product in the range which is a plug which gives you a
wireless point, instead of you connecting it with a cable to a PC or other
device.

What I was asking was whether using this "wireless plug" could give you good
speeds within a room, up to say 2m away, better than the typical speeds
achieved with a traditional wireless network setup.

Tanel.

In MsgID<(E-Mail Removed). net> on Wed, 18 Apr
2007 20:59:46 +0100, in uk.comp.home-networking, 'Jon' wrote:

>"Tanel Kagan" <tanelkagan@(nospam)hotmail.com> declared for all the
>world to hear...
>> Oh, and I forgot to ask - the wireless plug that you can link in with all
>> this - do you know if it is better than your average wireless router?
>
>Eh?
>
>A homeplug doesn't have any routing functions, it's just a point to plug
>a network cable into.

He reckoned there was a device on offer that acted as a plugin wireless
access point.

Dave J