A few months ago I was discussing the concept of plug and surf using the Solwise HomePlug. These are devices which enable you to use the existing electrical wiring in your house to create a home network. I’ve now got my hands on a couple of Solwise PL-85PE 85Mbps Ethernet HomePlug Adapters and I’m very impressed.
Each HomePlug Adapter comes with an ethernet cable, utility CD and small instruction manual. You need two or more of these adapters to setup a network. Installation was a breeze and I was up and running with a network in under 2 minutes!
You simply connect one of the adapters to your ADSL/cable modem using the provided ethernet cable and then plug the adapter into the nearest electrical socket. You then plug the second adapter into any other electrical socket in your house and connect it to a PC or games console using the provided ethernet cable.
These adapters don’t use any wireless technology so there is less chance of someone being able to eavesdrop on your network connection. You also don’t suffer any of the problems associated with wireless either such as thick walls reducing the wireless range. The connection from these adapters is rock solid with no interference or drop-outs, and the connection speeds are much faster than wireless too.
The beauty of these devices is that they are operating system independent. You can use them just as well on Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP, Mac OS X or games consoles, in fact any device you can plug an ethernet cable into.
I’ve read so many horror stories about wireless network problems when people upgraded to Edgy, the latest version of Ubuntu. The HomePlug would be a great alternative. I have tested the HomePlugs under both Ubuntu and Windows XP and they work flawlessly.
I was concerned that these devices might cause interference with other electrical appliances in my house like the TV, Sky+ box, microwave, dimmer switches, baby monitor or the house alarm, but I have been using the adapters for a few days now without any problems.
I’ve read on a couple of web sites some security concerns about these devices. Some people think it might be possible for the signal from the HomePlug to go beyond the electricity meter outside your house. Could it be possible for the signal to travel along the electricity cable from your house out into the street for a neighbour to eavesdrop into?
I think the chances of that are remote. Firstly the HomePlugs only have a range of 200 meters. Secondly, your neighbour would also need to be using the HomePlugs. And finally, you can enhance the security of your network using the configuration utility on the provided utility CD. The utility software allows transmission checks and adjustment of network names (encryption).
Each HomePlug adapter has a unique password printed on the plug. Using the configuration utility you can set the password for each HomePlug on your network. This then enables the privacy options on the configuration tool. Once each HomePlug has a password set you can assign a name to your network. The Solwise user manual explains this in more detail.
One thing to bear in mind, the HomePlugs need to be plugged directly into an electrical socket. Apparently they don’t work that well if plugged into an extension block.
I’m using the Solwise HomePlugs purely to enable internet access anywhere in my house, but you could also use them to stream video or music from one PC to another. If 85Mbps is not fast enough for you then there is a 200Mbps HomePlug AV Ethernet Adaptor too.
Overall the Solwise HomePlug is a great device which I’m very happy with. I’ve now got reliable, super fast internet access anywhere in my house I care to use my PC.
Buy the Solwise HomePlug from Amazon.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Multiplayer.ro » Blog Archive » Solwise 85Mbps HomePlug Review // Jan 11, 2007 at 11:07 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
2 Dean // Jan 13, 2007 at 11:32 am
Any network throughput tests to give us an idea of real world speed of these adapters?
3 Dean // Jan 15, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Sorry for the delay in responding. For some reason your comment was considered SPAM. The following link has more details on actual throughput speeds of these adapters:
http://www.solwise.co.uk/news-blog/?p=34
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