Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[I_want_an_Omega]

Has anyone got any experience of these  - the ones that plug into a mains socket and give an Ethernet connection over the mains?

Thanks

[Plomien]

problem is if a neighbour also has one and is on the same ring they can access your network

[I_want_an_Omega]

Apparently not, they need to be paired and the share an encryption key.

[tidla]

know nothing about them, but on the bases above the whole national grid would ,on hook up have access??

[I_want_an_Omega]

No, they have a limited range, maybe a 100m or so.

[Martin_1962]

They are an RF nightmare - Kevin Wood will be very upset.

Also they are expensive to run - they cost more per year in electricity than a 5m ethernet cable costs to buy outright

[Kevin Wood]

I have found them to be pretty sh1te.

They cause serious radio interference, mainly to short wave bands, although the latest devices can also affect FM and DAB radio. You might not use them but others near you might (and they will interfere with people several hundred metres away).

Take the speed claims with a huge pinch of salt. You will be extremely lucky to get half the claimed throughput (much less than that for devices that claim "gigabit" connectivity, and other such nonsense).

They are also pretty flaky. I tried a couple in my house and the connection was up and down like a whore's drawers. I suspect they are quite sensitive to noise that other devices inject into the mains wiring.

At the end of the day - your household mains wiring was not designed to transmit data, and it's therefore not surprising that trying to make it do so is like polishing a turd. Better off the use wireless LAN or put in some CAT 5 cabling, IMHO.

Kevin

[Chris_H]

I was talking to a firm that was making chips to do this a couple of months ago.  Their main aim was remote reading of electricity/gas meters.

How local networks would fair with all that chat going on, only time will tell.

Sorry Kevin

[I_want_an_Omega]

Very interesting comments - which was exactly what I was hoping for.

Ok, plan B is a long masonary drill & some CAT5 ,,,,,,,,,,,

[Kevin Wood]

I was talking to a firm that was making chips to do this a couple of months ago.  Their main aim was remote reading of electricity/gas meters.

How local networks would fair with all that chat going on, only time will tell.

Sorry Kevin

It's a nice idea, but it would be a brave utility company that rolls out electrickery meters that are 30db above the EN55002 conducted spurious emissions limits, I reckon.

Ok, plan B is a long masonary drill & some CAT5 ,,,,,,,,,,,

It'll be the easiest route in the long run, I reckon.

Kevin

[freecall666]

fixed sis's other week by putting the both in double socket and press two buttons on each at same time, fixed hers for a few days till the new one's come. they not very good BT.

[Chris_H]

I was talking to a firm that was making chips to do this a couple of months ago.  Their main aim was remote reading of electricity/gas meters.

How local networks would fair with all that chat going on, only time will tell.

Sorry Kevin

It's a nice idea, but it would be a brave utility company that rolls out electrickery meters that are 30db above the EN55002 conducted spurious emissions limits, I reckon.

Ok, plan B is a long masonary drill & some CAT5 ,,,,,,,,,,,

It'll be the easiest route in the long run, I reckon.

Kevin

I believe the plan would involve local servers that poll meters in their region and relay via existing cable/copper/fibre infrastructure.  That way they avoid running local cables to every property but the range is not too far.  Communication power is adaptive so they shout increasingly louder until they get a response or reach some preset limit.

Maxim(Link doesn't work for me currently but hopefully that is them and it will correct.)

[Kevin Wood]

Power line signalling does make sense for meter reading, "Smart Grid" applications, etc.

However, they'd be mad to use the same technology as used for internet access. You only need a few hundred bits per second to read a meter so narrow-band signalling down at 100KHz or so would make much more sense. It would also be more robust and less prone to radiating from the cables and interfering.

Give the chipsets to a marketing department to sell and they'll soon be trying to ram a square peg into a round hole, though.

Kevin

[Chris_H]

Power line signalling does make sense for meter reading, "Smart Grid" applications, etc.

However, they'd be mad to use the same technology as used for internet access. You only need a few hundred bits per second to read a meter so narrow-band signalling down at 100KHz or so would make much more sense. It would also be more robust and less prone to radiating from the cables and interfering.

Give the chipsets to a marketing department to sell and they'll soon be trying to ram a square peg into a round hole, though.

Kevin

I think you've got the gist of the problem.