Ring Main Networking

Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
for networking?

Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
49.99 in PC World.

http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html

I wonder why they have gone for a USB network connection rather than
ethernet - the review suggests it will not automatically adapt to any
existing networks so I am wondering - could it be used as a WiFi
extender in awkward house designs?

I appreciate the sockets must be on the same ring main..

Geoff Lane

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
> for networking?
>
> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
> 49.99 in PC World.
>
> http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html
>
> I wonder why they have gone for a USB network connection rather than
> ethernet - the review suggests it will not automatically adapt to any
> existing networks so I am wondering - could it be used as a WiFi
> extender in awkward house designs?
>
> I appreciate the sockets must be on the same ring main..
>
> Geoff Lane
>

http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a plug
so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:15:56 -0000, "recursor"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
>> for networking?
>>
>> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
>> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
>> 49.99 in PC World.
>>
>> http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html

> http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a plug
>so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..

Trouble is at 90ukp it is prohibitively expensive, I only looked at
the other one as it was a known make at an affordable price.

Makes me wonder, why don't they make a mains network device that is
able to carry ethernet, phone and TV aerial, now I'd pay a wee bit
more for that.

Geoff Lane

>

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:15:56 -0000, "recursor"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
>>> for networking?
>>>
>>> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
>>> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
>>> 49.99 in PC World.
>>>
>>> http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html
>
>> http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a
>> plug
>>so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..
>
> Trouble is at 90ukp it is prohibitively expensive, I only looked at
> the other one as it was a known make at an affordable price.
>
> Makes me wonder, why don't they make a mains network device that is
> able to carry ethernet, phone and TV aerial, now I'd pay a wee bit
> more for that.
>
This technology is quite new, they had some pretty difficult problems to overcome, (street lights
broadcasting network traffic). Wait a while and it will probably be much cheaper, (maybe ebuyer will
start selling it).

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
> for networking?
>
> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
> 49.99 in PC World.
>
> http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html
>
> I wonder why they have gone for a USB network connection rather than
> ethernet - the review suggests it will not automatically adapt to any
> existing networks so I am wondering - could it be used as a WiFi
> extender in awkward house designs?
>
> I appreciate the sockets must be on the same ring main..
>
> Geoff Lane
>

how quick is it?

seen as how it travels along the mains, whats the bandwidth of the mains? i
know at the end of the day it will be limited to the speed of the usb ports
so there isnt gonna be any gigabit speeds but hows about 100mbps?

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:15:56 -0000, recursor wrote:
>
> "Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
>> for networking?
>>
>> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
>> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
>> 49.99 in PC World.
>>
>> http://www.webuser.co.uk/products/Pa..._1923-213.html
>>
>> I wonder why they have gone for a USB network connection rather than
>> ethernet - the review suggests it will not automatically adapt to any
>> existing networks so I am wondering - could it be used as a WiFi
>> extender in awkward house designs?
>>
>> I appreciate the sockets must be on the same ring main..
>>
>> Geoff Lane
>>
>
> http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a plug
> so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..

I've just bought a air of these and was surprised to see that they did
exactly what they were supposed to do. Pluged one in, connected it to a
hub, plugged the other one in and connected it to my laptop, connection
there.

No idea how these work as both are on seperate rings that are, AFAIA,
onlt connected via the fuse box. Both of these rings are pretty new, I
haven't tried it on the older ring mains in the house yet.

Oh, and the leaflet taht came with them sugegsted that there is a
version that you can connect your stero to one end and a pair of
speakers to the other.
--
Dave

"Dave MacRae" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:6gofpc.1ip.ln@127.0.0.1...
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:15:56 -0000, recursor wrote:
>>
>> "Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
>>> for networking?
>>>
>>> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
>>> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
>>> 49.99 in PC World.
>>>
http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a plug
>> so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..
>
> I've just bought a air of these and was surprised to see that they did
> exactly what they were supposed to do. Pluged one in, connected it to a
> hub, plugged the other one in and connected it to my laptop, connection
> there.
>
> No idea how these work as both are on seperate rings that are, AFAIA,
> onlt connected via the fuse box. Both of these rings are pretty new, I
> haven't tried it on the older ring mains in the house yet.
>
Interesting, I had heard they were good, I suppose you could run a mains extension lead down the
garden and work outside in the summer on a proper hard wired ethernet. Do you think you're getting
something like normal 100 mbit performance with them ?

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 21:55:47 -0000, recursor wrote:
>
> "Dave MacRae" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:6gofpc.1ip.ln@127.0.0.1...
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:15:56 -0000, recursor wrote:
>>>
>>> "Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>> Anyone had any experience of devices that use the home mains wiring
>>>> for networking?
>>>>
>>>> Up to now the only devices I've seen have been over 100ukp making them
>>>> quite uneconomical but I've seen the device shown below priced at
>>>> 49.99 in PC World.
>>>>
> http://tinyurl.com/5a7fp This devolo kit does ethernet over mains but it works out at £90 a plug
>>> so it aint cheap. Works well though I'm told..
>>
>> I've just bought a air of these and was surprised to see that they did
>> exactly what they were supposed to do. Pluged one in, connected it to a
>> hub, plugged the other one in and connected it to my laptop, connection
>> there.
>>
>> No idea how these work as both are on seperate rings that are, AFAIA,
>> onlt connected via the fuse box. Both of these rings are pretty new, I
>> haven't tried it on the older ring mains in the house yet.
>>
> Interesting, I had heard they were good, I suppose you could run a mains extension lead down the
> garden and work outside in the summer on a proper hard wired ethernet. Do you think you're getting
> something like normal 100 mbit performance with them ?

The recommendation is that theyare plugged directly to the wall socket
so an extension lead is out. You could just run a length of Cat 5
instead of the extension though.

The rarted speed is 10-14Mbps giving a true rate of about 6 one way. I
copied a big file and was gettin speeds of about that so I'm happy.

--
Dave

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 21:55:47 -0000, "recursor"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>> No idea how these work as both are on seperate rings that are, AFAIA,
>> onlt connected via the fuse box. Both of these rings are pretty new, I
>> haven't tried it on the older ring mains in the house yet.

It must connect somehow otherwise they would not see each other,
wonder if a neighbour culd be on the same wiring circuit or does it
stop at the meter?

>Interesting, I had heard they were good, I suppose you could run a mains extension lead down the
>garden and work outside in the summer on a proper hard wired ethernet. Do you think you're getting
>something like normal 100 mbit performance with them ?

I'm a wee bit confused as to your reference to ethernet - the ones I
saw were USB connections so is intended as a peer to peer, one report
I read suggested it does not easily become part of any other network.

Geoff Lane

>

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:38:02 GMT, Dave MacRae
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>> Interesting, I had heard they were good, I suppose you could run a mains extension lead down the
>> garden and work outside in the summer on a proper hard wired ethernet. Do you think you're getting
>> something like normal 100 mbit performance with them ?
>
>The recommendation is that theyare plugged directly to the wall socket
>so an extension lead is out. You could just run a length of Cat 5
>instead of the extension though.

I didn't think there was an ethernet socket on the PC World (Packard
Bell) device otherwise they would offer very good flexibility.

The ethernet versions I've seen are still quite expensive, over
100ukp.

Geoff Lane