wifi and PLN
 

Well I finally received the DSL modem 8D I plugged it to the ass of my OpenBSD server and had to put all the 4 computers of the house on the same network. Since my room is downstairs near the garage and all the rest of the house is upstairs the problem was how to wire all this altogether. I tried 56kbps wifi in ad-hoc mode (no concentrator), but heck, even though the 2 ends of the link are almost at the vertical of each other, it doesn't work well at all, sometimes the link can't even be established, sometimes the pings time out, that much that it's almost unusable. I tried this for 2-3 days and I had to give up with this method. For me wifi = crap. I wonder how commercials manage to hype and sell stuff that does not work.

Now the good thing is that I discovered Power Line Networking adapters 8) It's sort of little boxes you plug on the power line with a RJ45 adapter from your existing network at the end, and it's the power lines circuit of your house that do the networking. And boy, that rocks 8) It can go up to 20Mb or so, no more wires, no more hub/switch, and TOTAL TRANSPARENCY. You plug your RJ45 into the power socket and you have the home network everywhere where there's a power plug. €99 for 2 adapters. And that technology is expected to evolve a lot in a near future.

Just wanted to share my experience. Forget about wifi, bluetooth and all that wireless crap. PLN simply rocks :D

Re: wifi and PLN
 

grr arg

Re: wifi and PLN
 

A large German company wanted to introduce PLN hardware on a big scale here in Germany some 2 or 3 years ago, but they kept having problems and finally dropped it. I think they wanted to use it to offer an alternative to DSL internet connection, but it didn't quite work out. Too expensive, too unreliable devices - so they said

Now, with all the hype about BlueTooth and WLAN, it seems to be almost forgotten, although those adapters for home networking now exist, which is a good thing.

One aspect you forgot to mention is the additional security. No more Mr. Parasite parked in your front yard with a laptop and WLAN card, no more interesting chalk signs near your house ("those kids sure scribble odd symbols on the walls nowadays...") - perfect. Congrats! =)

Re: wifi and PLN
 

hm, I have a WLan DSL modem here too, and well, it works, but only unencrypted, we havn't managed yet to get all receivers receive encrypted data, one always fails - and the strange thing is that it's not only a special one :/

well, now I have holidays, most ppl are at home, so I switched it off ... but when the semester restarts, the configsessions will restart, I fear :(

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Well, here @ my place, we have a DSL modem (working as a 1-port router) connected to a 4-port ethernet switch that distributes the internet between the 2 computers. We can do that because the computers are side by side :D

Maybe, in a far future, I'll put my computer in my bedroom and make a Wi-Fi 802.11b (or g). But that's a HUGE maybe...

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Thats pretty much the same setup that I have here. I considered making it wireless, but I already had a ethernet switch.

Re: wifi and PLN
 

No thanks about PLN.
1G lan rocks. NFS mounts act almost as fast local disks :D

Re: wifi and PLN
 

1Gb lan, nice... if you have the lan in the walls :)

meh, I have my little network everywhere there's a power socket :D nagnagnag

Re: wifi and PLN
 

wohoo my pc now works as a wlan access point :)
Now I've got both LAN and WLAN :D

Re: wifi and PLN
 

beware, someday I'll park my car near your house and then... PWNED :P

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Yep and so you have at your neigboors.
The PLN was no security about that. The power lines don't stop at frontdoor. And so doesn't the datastream. Except for the use of encription.
But that has a big toll on bandwith.... nah nah nah.

=========
edit.
The same goes for Wlan.

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Be aware that my uber 1337 wep key code generated by OpenSSL is unbreakable 9_9

Right I only keep this thing on when needed :)

Re: wifi and PLN
 

tsk tsk tsk, nope my friend :) Here, the PLN stops at the electricity counter. It doesn't spread upwards. My home network is completely self-contained inside my building. The only issue would be if I was in a tower AND if I was sharing my electricity bills with neighbours. Oh and encryption is enabled by default; PLN is just 802.11 standards moduled on a wire instead of in the air :)

Insert coin to continue... :P

Re: wifi and PLN
 

lol. I read about this technology before, but it was not that 'good'. As pmb said, in flats or high buildings, with lots of electricity, you have a lot of data loss. Also bad-wired buildings deliver poor speeds.

The conclusion was, you better can use real network cables, gives you speeds you can never really reach with electricity cables... ie, 1000Mbit ;)

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Do you have special electricity meter ???

Re: wifi and PLN
 

Well, I don't know in the netherlands but here everybody has filters on his power counter... and the quality of the power network is VERY good (partly because of that).

Re: wifi and PLN
 

well i hope to not devert to off the topic but i understand your using WIFI in a personal realm you should check this site out ive been collecting OLD tv antennias because the ones that come stock with most devices is like 1 db maybe 5 ... well anyways im sure this sites has more than you wanted to know

http://www.seattlewireless.net/

i have like 2 linux cd based access points to like turn an old pc into a wireless router / bridge .... but im just dumb.....


http://www.seattlewireless.net/index...AskedQuestions