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Author Topic: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.  (Read 4231 times)

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Geek-9pm

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Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« on: August 28, 2014, 03:02:55 PM »
Judge fro yourself what this means.
Google on:
Gigabit Power line Network
..and find this:
Amazon sells D-link Gigabit Power line wall-wort.
Wait! there is more. Tom's hardware just posted this:
ZyXEL has World's First Gigabit Powerline Adapter
If they just now invented it, how can Amazon be selling a D-link model?
Oh, the D-link does 500 600 Mbps over a power line in your home.

The Zytel PR is found in the usual place. Like Facebook
ZyXEL Claims World's First Gigabit Power line LAN.

Do you believe this? Is it true?
Really?  Data at 600 Mbps now a Gigabit?
{Maybe data  is faster over a power line?}





camerongray



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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2014, 03:35:22 PM »
Of course I believe it, no reason really why they can't do it... Be interesting to see what they real world performance is like as if it could actually get close to gigabit in a real world scenario that would save a lot of regular consumers having to run ethernet cables in order to get maximum speed.

When that D-Link says Gigabit I think it is referring to the Ethernet interface on the device being Gigabit (which of course it must be since the next step down would be 100mbps which would be too slow).  The device will still only be able to send the data through the wiring at 600mbps - Just seems to be a bit of tricky marketing to me.  The ZyXEL on the other hand would be able to move data through the mains wiring at gigabit speeds.

{Maybe data  is faster over a power line?}
Faster than what?

Geek-9pm

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2014, 07:57:34 PM »
Some research shows that the Gigabit Power Line thing can cuase interference to some radio broadcast. The spectrum used for the power line transmission goes well into the shortwave bands. At least one user said it stopped his DAR. That is the Digital Audio Radio, which is in the UHF region. Others report mutual interference in  other paters of the radio frequencies normally used for consumers.

Here is an  older article that address this issue.
http://www.ka7oei.com/wd_powerline_modem.html
Quote
What this means is that anyone who operates such a device, by using it, has agreed to be responsible when it comes to any interference that the device under question causes - that is, if someone complains that said device causes interference to them, it is incumbent on the owner of that device to mitigate that interference - even if it means that you have to stop using it!  The second part means that if radio operation causes the device to not work properly - such as when a Ham operator transmits - that the user of that device has no legal recourse when it comes to stopping such operation as this agreement also stipulates that they are using it at their own risk.
Sad to say, almost all of the PR about these devices fails to mention this point.

DaveLembke



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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2014, 05:00:00 AM »
With my past experience with devices like this that so-called work through communications through household wiring, the performance has been very poor.

Initial application was going to be for a commercial building ( a food store ) where I didnt want to have to string a cat5 cable across rafters and down to a new Cafe Express register that was floting out in the middle of the store, and since it had an outlet drop from the ceiling down to it, it would have worked perfect to have this drop work for both power and network communications.

And here is where the failure began with this device:

#1 - The device for the network bridge like communications over power line has to be on the same phase leg between both outlets that allow for the device to tunnel communications across over the hot leg.

#2 - Not just does it have to be on the same phase ( hot leg ), but for better speed and reliability it also has to be connected to an outlet that is on the same circuit breaker... essentially making the distance shorter for the communications on the hot leg as well as minimization of noise.

#3 - Even when on the same circuit breaker, same phase ( hot leg ), the communications were poor. A persistent ping indicated latency that was bouncing all over the place and sometimes time outs. Latency was anywhere from 100ms to 1000ms with each ping a value in between and sometimes a timeout on the ping.

What I ended up doing instead is buying a Linksys Wireless G Bridge device that allows for this stand alone device to sync up with wireless and connect via Cat 5 cable to the Fujitsu Team POS 5000 cash register.

So anyone needing to extend their network in their home to network devices that do not have wifi and there is no wifi internal integration or external wifi dongle option for these, I would highly recommend buying a wireless bridge instead of one of these powerline network devices. Maybe these powerline network devices have gotten better over the last 8 years, but reviews online still indicate them being troublesome and hit and miss, with mostly problems.

Personally I still like to just drill a hole and run Cat5e or using Wireless G or N where holes shouldnt be drilled.

Geek-9pm

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2014, 04:56:51 PM »
Thank you all for sharing your ideas about the gigabit power line devices. My reason for posting this was to let everybody know that such devices are available and it is possible to have a gigabit local area network without the need of using either Wi-Fi or ethernet cables.
However, as has been mentioned, trying to get reliable power line local area network can be a real challenge. Transfer rates up to the gigabit are hard to achieve. Under typical conditions. Besides the interference created from television sets, computers and home appliances, there is the issue of EMI filters.
Effectively, you have to rethink how the electrical system supplies energy to different kinds of devices on the same leg of the electrical system. In some cases, it will be very difficult, you are liable network connection.
Still, local network over power line may be a practical solution. In some situations.

This was posted in 'Computer News" because it represents a break-through in technology.Earlier  revisions of FCC rules for  have made it legal to use unlicensed devices which potentially interfere with some licensed radio services.

EDIT: Fast network over  power line is called BPL. It seldom hits 100 Mbps reliably.
But Gigabit over power line is new. Sad to ay, there does not seem to be any effort to reduce the interference issue. That is where no news is bad news.
You may send me a PM if you wish to ask questions about the BPL interference issue. There is a lot of recent material about it. Mostly bad.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 05:18:19 PM by Geek-9pm »

patio

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2014, 05:44:46 PM »
They can call it GigaBit til they are blue in the face...
Fact is power line speeds are atrocious...
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

camerongray



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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2014, 06:08:28 PM »
They can call it GigaBit til they are blue in the face...
Fact is power line speeds are atrocious...

Yeah, same with WiFi - You can get gigabit but only in ideal circumstances which the average user will never get considering the average home wiring has generally been bodged together over several years.

What I'm more interested to see is if say I have a 150mbps powerline kit that runs at say 80mbps in my environment, would a Gigabit kit run any faster.

Powerline is still useful in some cases but for now I'll be sticking with my CAT5 since that can truly get Gigabit.

Geek-9pm

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2014, 03:29:41 PM »
FCC now lets power line devices use the radio frequencies from 1.7 MHz up mto 80 MHz. That range will easily allow 100 Mbps data, but it would be a chore to hit Gigabit. But the makes claim it does work.

As for Wi-Fi, the agency has added more bandwidth for the 5 GHz band and the use of higher power and outdoor use without a license.  A duly Licensed business could have even more power and large antenna to cover a wide area.  This legal change in the rules  would allow Wi-Fi to be the 'last mile' for fiber. If that is what AT&T will do, the cost of the project will be less instead of  fiber all  the way to  the house approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber
It was reported that Google will use Wi-Fi to bring the data from the street to the house. So there would be no need to have fiber to the house.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2014, 03:45:02 PM by Geek-9pm »

patio

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2014, 07:08:37 PM »
You missed the point...PowerLine connections basically suck...
Try one...you'll see.
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

Geek-9pm

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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2014, 07:26:48 PM »
You missed the point...PowerLine connections basically suck...
Try one...you'll see.
No thanks.
But think it odd tart Gigabit is now the buzz word.
I am happy with 10 megabit.
Does anybody ever need a gigabit at home?

camerongray



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Re: Gigabit Powerline Network for your home.
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2014, 04:32:06 AM »
Does anybody ever need a gigabit at home?
Gigabit LAN? Yes.  All of my files are stored on a server that I have on my network, I need some a Gigabit connection within the network so that I can access my files at a reasonable speed.  Same goes for people that stream video between different devices on their network which is becoming common.

Gigabit Internet Connections? Probably not yet, but will be necessary down the line, go back a while and people would be asking "Who needs more than 56k dialup".  Down the line 4k streaming will be a thing, that will need faster internet connections for sure.  I certainly couldn't cope with 10mbps as an internet connection but for a lighter internet user who just browses sites then yes, it's fine.

But think it odd tart Gigabit is now the buzz word.
It's not a buzz word any more than "gigahertz" was when CPUs started getting to that speed.  Networks getting faster is hardly surprising.