Continue with wireless or try powerline?

espresso

Leopard wrote: »

do you know of anywhere that sells cat-proof Cat5e? Anewhope's cats chew his Cat5e and he's had to resort to putting toilet-roll cores round them. So his are only 99% reliable.

Well it is available e.g. here although rather expensive for home use. The only alternative that I can think of is to run the cable though some microbore copper tube, as used in some central heating systems e.g. here Similar copper encased cable is commonly used in fire alarm systems for drops to alarm buttons etc.

I can see that these powerline adaptors do have their uses but I ran an Ethernet cable up to my study quite easily via the airing cupboard and it is not visible anywhere. Most properties have somewhere where cables can be concealed or run invisibly with very little effort e.g. where central heating pipes are located or even though the wall to outside and then back in again.

Leopard

Thanks, espresso :A .

In our own case we used neat white trunking, where necessary, and ran it up the stairways and over the tops of doorways. The problem, of course, being that you have to give it gentle turns at sharp 90º corners.

It isn't always possible to get under floors (particularly if they are stone or carpeted) and granite walls aren't ideal for drilling through. There can also be problems with Listed Building regulations and/or tenancy agreements and not everyone has ground floor access for the ladders necessary to run and secure cabling externally. There is, moreover, the security risk of vulnerability to vandalism or malicious tampering with wires that run outside the premises.

So, I think we need to be careful about generalising.

Thanks to your endlessly patient tutoring :A most people on here know that Cat5e (or Cat6) cable is the cheapest, fastest, most reliable and most efficient way to distribute networking signal (although you are quite right to keep them reminded of that) but there are some situations in which it just isn't possible, practical or permitted. Aesthetic Ethernet can be elusive.

In such scenarios, people have to resort to alternatives and whether powerline adaptors or wireless transmission will work better in any given situation depends on a number of factors - not least, as Conor pointed out, the difficulties of propagating wireless signal both horizontally and vertically.

But the convenience of wireless is undeniable for laptops and other kit that is not kept at fixed locations.

We found, ourselves, that a combination of Cat5e (I try to avoid using the word "cable" because of the confusion it can cause with the Virgin system), powerline adaptors and wireless provides the best solution in our particular circumstances. It's ultimately a case of using the most appropriate tool available for each part of the job. I'm sure we'd all agree on that.

chateauneufdupape

The two Homeplugs arrived today. I pluged the cables into the plus and computers, put the plugs in the wall and instantly had full internet service in the attic. I wish I had done this a year ago. I am absolutely delighted. The wireless plug should arrive tomorrow. Thanks for all your help.

Leopard

Yo! :money:

So glad to hear it's worked for you. I'm not surprised, but I'm happy that it did: the technology is proven but everything depends on the quality of the wiring in the house.

Well, two down; one to go, eh! That'll be a little bit more complicated but Solwise will get it sorted for you if you encounter any problems.

Main thing to decide now is whether you want to keep your existing Netgear DG834GT doing what it's doing at the moment (modem + firewall + router + wireless) and configure the Solwise wireless device as a repeater for it, filling in the patchy bits and ensuring you get a single good signal throughout the house. That's what I'd try doing, given that they are both 802.11b/g.

Anyway, thanks for the progress report; I look forward to your next update.

johnrd

I'm a Devolo fan. I was sceptical originally, and so bought from a Maplins shop, just making it quite clear I'd be back later that day for a refund if they didn't work. They were fine about that.

10 mins to plug in, and work through 2 x extension leads & 3 x consumer units and then 100 yards down the garden. I actually suspect it was magic at first :-)

Hope this helps, John

Leopard

Devolo's product is excellent. It's a German company, based in Aachen.

The Germans are big on powerline adaptors. It is common, in Germany, for the utility connections to be installed in the basement (not ideal in areas prone to flooding...). If the building is constructed on concrete foundations this creates problems for wireless Internet networking.

Unlike Solwise, which is committed only to the Dark Side, Devolo offers full support for Mac.

For that reason alone, I'd buy from them, in preference to Solwise, for anything more than simple powerline adaptor kit.

But I think Devolo's pass-through powerline adaptors are made only for round European plugs. They were, when I bought - so I went for Solwise.

espresso

Leopard wrote: »

Unlike Solwise, which is committed only to the Dark Side, Devolo offers full support for Mac.

For that reason alone, I'd buy from them, in preference to Solwise, for anything more than simple powerline adaptor kit.

As they are emulating an Ethernet cable, why does the OS have any relevance?

Leopard

Because some of the configuring can be tweaked by software for personal preferences and because without a PC you can only update the firmware with a Mac if the firmware support is Mac. (I looked into all this before buying. :cool: )

The basic Solwise powerline adaptors come with a button on the front for simple (untweaked) setup of communication between themselves.

chateauneufdupape

Hi, I have now received and installed the the wireless Home Turbo and all is working very well. The wireless wasn't as simple as plug and play, but I got there in the end. I had to change the TCP/IP settings in order to log into the web interface site. I was expecting to have 1 wireless network, but now have two (the original Netgear one and the new Home Turbo one). Therefore, I have to choose which one to connect to.

Hope you all have a great Christmas.

Bob63

Configuring it in WDS mode would allow you to have just one network.