I'm thinking of trying some of these out



Would you be able to run one of these from the Powerline adapter or does it need to be connected direct to the BT homehub 5 ?

 

You'd be able to connect a switch to a powerline adapter

 

Should be OK. I use the 500Mbps version connected to a Linksys switch and that's fine.

 

Cheers

How stable is the connection through these homeplug adapters ? It's just something i'm going to try as originally i wanted to run a Cat 6 extension from downstairs but it's going to be a bit of a pig of a job, i thought i'd give these a try first and see how they go.

 

My connection has been 100% stable over the 2 years I've been using them - the only issue I've had is the broadband occasionally goes walkies (router loses connection with the Exchange), but the internal network has been fine.

 

I use Homeplugs, but I have to say, the speeds vary greatly, and they do lose 'sight' of each other.


Sometimes they will go for months, have gone over a year without issue, then they just decide enough is enough, I have to reset the whole network, which is a real pain.


But, they do remove the need for wireless, and when they work well, they are great.

 

I've used Devolo ones for a few years. I've got a mixture of pass-through, wifi extenders and dual ports. All at 500mbps. One started playing up after about 3 years. It would keep dropping connection momentarily and reconnecting. Only noticed it when trying to stream movies across the network and they would keep freezing. I just bought a new one in thge end.

Very occasionally have to reset one simply by turning it off and on and again. Bare in mind that you'll see no where near their maximum throughput. It's all down to the design, quality and route of your internal wiring. My 500 mbps network (4 adapaters) currently says it's working at a speed of around 220mbps. However, when I have doen a test transferring data from a laptop to a PC, across the network, it generally shows a speed about 50mbps.

But that is more than enough to stream full Blu-Ray movies across the network to a TV. In fact, I can stream a couple of movies to different TVs at the same time without any issue. So a lot depends on your bandwidth requirements.

The main reason I got them was to use them as wifi-extenders across the property and also to have a physical connection for my PC in my office. I've had them in a couple of properties and think they are great. I have one in my office, one for the TV/BT Player in the bedroom and one for the TV/SKY etc in the Living room. I especially like the fact that you can just add more when required or simply unplug one and move it to a different room, providing it's on the same mains network (so you could put one in your garage, shed etc).