kudv4yn3 wrote:Just so everyone knows....PoE (power over ethernet) kits, are Cabbage Patch Elvis. There are so many things that can make these randomly stop working...
microwaves
cordless phones
cell phones
SURGE PROTECTORS...thats right, you cant use surge protectors with these or they wont work....

....snip...

i work for microcenter, and every one of these that i have sold have come back.

Maybe they are coming back because you are selling the wrong thing?

PoE - provides electric power to the remote device

PowerLine Ethernet - provides networking using the power lines.


I've used 1st gen (proprietary) and 2nd gen (HomePlug) units with decent results. No surge suppressor and just like X10 you need to make sure you don't have power fed from both legs of the 240v feed. If you have two power panels or a split panel, then the signal won't cross legs.

afurball wrote:Nope, it doesn't matter, either adapter will distribute or receive the internet signal. Though if the 4-port is plugged into the router the additional ports would not be useful for anything.

Typically the 4-port would be on the destination side since you're distributing the internet access from your router to somewhere else. ...

Yes, but if you need 1-3 extra ports where your router is located, and only have one 'remote' device to talk to (e.g., the PS-3 next to the hot tub :-), you can certainly use them the other way around.

Can this be used to link 2 Wireless Routers, amplifying the overall coverage?

This is officially carp. Bandwidth depends on the cables (twisted pair) hence cat 5, cat 5e, cat 6, etc. when hardwired which electrical wiring is not. Also, there will be interference. Anyone who knows anything about how electricity works can tell you this. These are good for someone not doing anything bandwidth intensive like updating their facebook status who does not have wireless.

wcoury3 wrote:Could not agree more - BPL is bad technology and should be avoided.

HomePlug is not BPL.

BPL runs signals over the powerlines coming into the home to give you BroadBand.

These units are FCC certified and don't cause interference unless your home wiring is improper

pmancinelli wrote:Can this be used to link 2 Wireless Routers, amplifying the overall coverage?

No. A bridge is required to do that.

peach73 wrote:Anyone know the real range on this? Say for instance, would it work in a large business like a hotel with tons of power outlets or would there be a considerable drop/down grade in quality of the signal?

The outlets must be on the same circuit. If you look at the fuse box, there will be rows of breakers. Each row is on a buss bar that constitutes one circuit. If they are in the same row, odds are they will work fine. In a Hotel, you will most likely have multiple circuits and in that case, it more than likely would not work between circuits.

android4255 wrote:No. A bridge is required to do that.

I don't understand why I could not wiredly connect two wireless routers. Doesnt make sense for me unless there is a specific block for this. Your comment seems to be based on wireless bridging, which I know this is not a wireless device.

android4255 wrote:This is officially carp. Bandwidth depends on the cables (twisted pair) hence cat 5, cat 5e, cat 6, etc. when hardwired which electrical wiring is not. Also, there will be interference. Anyone who knows anything about how electricity works can tell you this. These are good for someone not doing anything bandwidth intensive like updating their facebook status who does not have wireless.

I have a set connected to my FIOS router and can pull the full 25 Mbps. (100 MB driver from NVidia at 3.15 MBps in 23 seconds) So if you have never used them, try not to speak as if you are all knowing. (and yes, 25 Mbps is the same as 3.15 MBps)

There are two differnt model numbers shown. The pictured item shows the newer model number PLTK300 but the items discription indicates the older version number PLTE200, Buyer beware!

EltonNoway wrote:It's not so much the number of outlets that you have... as much as having the two outlets you intend to use on the same house power circuit.

In other words... if you plug one unit at your router or computer room... and the other unit in your garage or home office, and the two locations are on a "different" circuit breakers,... these may not work. Read the reviews on Amazon.

It's not so much that it's a different breaker, it's that house wiring has two 120v "legs". Inside the breaker box, every other breaker is on opposite legs. These devices need to be plugged into the same leg, or you need to have a special bridging device, usually installed at the breaker box, that allows the signals to travel from one leg to the other. X10 suffers the same inconvenience. Interestingly, the signals get bridged automatically whenever a 220v device is operating. So, if you don't mind leaving your oven or dryer on, you can avoid installing a bridge.

As for the signals not leaving the house, not being able to get past the main breaker, as an Electrical Engineer I cannot see why they wouldn't very easily travel through that breaker. Unless the breaker is manufactured with a low-pass filter inline, it is essentially just a piece of wire. AC, DC, whatever will pass quite well in both directions.

android4255 wrote:This is officially carp. Bandwidth depends on the cables (twisted pair) hence cat 5, cat 5e, cat 6, etc. when hardwired which electrical wiring is not. Also, there will be interference. Anyone who knows anything about how electricity works can tell you this. These are good for someone not doing anything bandwidth intensive like updating their facebook status who does not have wireless.

Bandwidth does not depend on cables. Wireless supports bandwidth without any cables and is also affected by interference.

fencepost wrote:85 Mbit isn't so bad, but 56-bit encryption? Can't you crack that with a graphics card in about 30 seconds?

Yup. Then again, regular wired ethernet has 0-bit encryption. Just don't use something like this in an area where you share the circuit with others you don't know, if you're worried about privacy.

gamara1 wrote:The outlets must be on the same circuit. If you look at the fuse box, there will be rows of breakers. Each row is on a buss bar that constitutes one circuit. If they are in the same row, odds are they will work fine. In a Hotel, you will most likely have multiple circuits and in that case, it more than likely would not work between circuits.

Not quite true. The boxes I've seen use two criss-cross bus bars behind the breakers, so it ends up being even-odd on different circuits.

The Ho wrote:Bandwidth does not depend on cables. Wireless supports bandwidth without any cables and is also affected by interference.

I must disagree. Bandwidth in wired systems very much depends on the type of wire. More accurately, the amount of shielding and interference depends on wire type, which then has a direct correlation to available bandwidth. Think about cable TV-it's in a shielded coax, due to needing to carry GHz signals. Speaker wire can get away with being straight wire, although twisted is better. Bandwidth in wireless radio applications is a horse of a different color.

I have been toying with going with Netflix online with my PS3 since they released it, but have been worried about bandwith issues. I know my router is N, but I don't think the PS3 has that technology. Would it be worth it to use this instead? Would it be smarter just to move the modem & router downstairs instead?

pmancinelli wrote:I don't understand why I could not wiredly connect two wireless routers. Doesnt make sense for me unless there is a specific block for this. Your comment seems to be based on wireless bridging, which I know this is not a wireless device.

I have an occasionally used wireless router than I run a cable from the WAN port into the regular LAN port of wired router which is my main router.

I don't have anything configured to create one happy local network. But I got internet access to the wireless router without any reconfiguring at all.

You can likely run the remote wireless router's WAN port (the one that normally goes to the internet) into one of the normal LAN ports in the powerline device. My guess is that you would get internet access out of the box.

But configuring everything locally to be happy together in a local network may take some work. Under this configuration I'd think you'd end up with two distinct wireless access points with their own IDs. So I don't think you could walk from one place with one wireless access point to the second access point without reconnecting.

It's useful if you do not have the money to run cables throughout your home, or the technical know-how to setup a secure wireless network.

I could see it being really useful in a rental/apartment situation.

WOOT!

Can I use 4 or 6 of these together?
Can I share my Internet with anyone that is on the same transformer using these?

Th0r wrote:Can I use 4 or 6 of these together?
Can I share my Internet with anyone that is on the same transformer using these?

I'm pretty sure these won't leave your house. Hence the weak encryption.

jpm100 wrote:I have an occasionally used wireless router than I run a cable from the WAN port into the regular LAN port of wired router which is my main router.

I don't have anything configured to create one happy local network. But I got internet access to the wireless router without any reconfiguring at all.

You can likely run the remote wireless router's WAN port (the one that normally goes to the internet) into one of the normal LAN ports in the powerline device. My guess is that you would get internet access out of the box.

But configuring everything locally to be happy together in a local network may take some work. Under this configuration I'd think you'd end up with two distinct wireless access points with their own IDs. So I don't think you could walk from one place with one wireless access point to the second access point without reconnecting.

You can have 2 wifi access points with the same SSID on a network, just make sure they are on 2 separate channels (like 1 and 11). That way you can walk around without losing connection from one AP to the other.

That's a bunch of nonsense. You're saying GigE can't push 50Mbps?

Please don't mislead others.

mtnsports wrote:You can't stream 1080p even on Gigabit ethernet (which is more than 11x faster than 85 Mbps).

drdam4n wrote:It's useful if you do not have the money to run cables throughout your home, or the technical know-how to setup a secure wireless network.

I could see it being really useful in a rental/apartment situation.

WOOT!

Actually power in apartments is often an intermingled mess. Your neighbors could likely access your network if they knew that you had one and they were so inclined.

I am running my home network with one "base" and two "satellite" (what you plug PC's into) pieces. I have to say that this works to connect rooms that wireless can't reach AND your network is safer as no network traffic is shooting through the air as happens with wireless. The only concern you will have is making sure that the power plug you plug into is on the same electrical circuit as the "base". I like this so much I bought another today as a gift for my grandmother so she can sit in her living room with the notebook I got her and send email, browse the web, etc. without having to set up wireless.

drdam4n wrote:You can have 2 wifi access points with the same SSID on a network, just make sure they are on 2 separate channels (like 1 and 11). That way you can walk around without losing connection from one AP to the other.

Cool. Thanks. I've been trying to work through a similar problem.

Can I use this as a relay for wireless routers?

In other words, plug my wireless router into the ethernet port?

peach73 wrote:Anyone know the real range on this? Say for instance, would it work in a large business like a hotel with tons of power outlets or would there be a considerable drop/down grade in quality of the signal?

Unless they have throttled back the output this should work in a hotel. The is a release of an older cisco product which unfortunetly the name of is not coming to me. Basicly hotels was what this was designed for. We installed the main device in the wiring closet and then in each room an end device was placed giving the ability for guests to access the internet. It was used in place of wireless for hotels that did not have the ability to support wireless issues, or put a hardwire to each room but wanted to offer internet like the newer places that did. It has all but died out with the chains renuvating and the smaller places using basic wireless devices. But would apear they are making another run at the technoligy.

I have these and they are ROCK solid. Much faster than wireless and never ever drops. As people said, dont plug them into a surge protector and if you have an older home say with 2 electrical boxes, keep these on the circuits of the same box. Other than that, speed is incredible. These are 85mbps...DSL (Basic) is 1.5mbps. Blu-Ray is 36mbps. The four port one is by the TV for games, my TV i connected as is my blu ray player. This price is fantastic. Mine cost $150.

mmelone wrote:Can I use this as a relay for wireless routers?

In other words, plug my wireless router into the ethernet port?

Yes you surely can. It works the same as any netork jack.

bmbell wrote:I use these at home, as well as at work. At home I have a 2-story kids clubhouse that doesn't get good wireless reception. But, with these, the bandwidth is awesome.
So, I also bought a pair for work. My office is a separate building from my warehouse. But, they are connected to the same transformer. My NAS drive is stuffed in a corner of the warehouse, and is simply wired from a 120V outlet...no other wires, no sporadic wireless signal, and is encrypted....Perfect solution for my application.

I would suggest you (and folks like you who actually are able to use these devices) are the reason why the company who makes them wish they didn't have to cut a deal with Woot to get rid of all the ones they have left over.

Happy Holidays!

jpm100 wrote:I have an occasionally used wireless router than I run a cable from the WAN port into the regular LAN port of wired router which is my main router.

I don't have anything configured to create one happy local network. But I got internet access to the wireless router without any reconfiguring at all.

You can likely run the remote wireless router's WAN port (the one that normally goes to the internet) into one of the normal LAN ports in the powerline device. My guess is that you would get internet access out of the box.

But configuring everything locally to be happy together in a local network may take some work. Under this configuration I'd think you'd end up with two distinct wireless access points with their own IDs. So I don't think you could walk from one place with one wireless access point to the second access point without reconnecting.

Excellent explanation, that was the help I was looking for, thanks!

How are these if plugged into outlets from 2 different phases? A house with 220 volts has 2 hot lines. Can these cross from 1 to the other?

Is this useful for playing on xbox live as opposed to wireless?

chefbooyadee wrote:FYI: If your home has separate wiring systems for different parts of the house(like an addition or some older houses), this won't work.

So does this mean if my house has a breaker for each room it won't work across the different breakers?

Will this work in other countries?

I'd really like to take this back to my parents home, but my home country electrical system uses 220 V.

LOL...I like the way you made your point. Strange, a lot of folks talking tech out of their ass on this obscure product.

pyr8t wrote:Hope your boss doesn't frequent the blog. These aren't PoE kits.

Thanks for the heads up on the quality of the support I can get at the MC...

Hmmm...wonder if this would work to get/transfer content of Direct TV on demand (the "1000" channels) to my receiver?

The installer said nothing except a cat6 cable run between the receiver and the router (which are at opposite ends/floors of the house, of course) would work...what a hassle.

Any experience with this application?

blue_94_trooper wrote:Yeah, sorry about that. I've been using a bunch of your bandwidth for a little experiment I've been working on.

Dammit give it back!

Dear Woot, I love your witty prose, and off the cuff, semi-dry humor, but more often than not, I find myself having to google the product you're selling to find out, what the heck it actually does!

Take this product for example, something about plugging into a network connection, a cave, and electric outlet and then....the internets?

How about complimenting your "obviously had more schooling than us" rambling with some "so easy an MBA could understand it" descriptions.

mattstl wrote:These are bad... very bad. All BPL (Broadband Power Line) networking devices use a very large amount of RF/Radio spectrum (constantly, whether data is passing or not) to pass the data for the network....

What does this do? Pollute the airwaves of people that need the frequencies from about 2-30MHz... Why do I care? Well it just happens that people like Red Cross, Marine HF, Shortwave radio, Amateur Radion, and other entities that need these frequencies during a disaster will be potentially impacted/interfered with by these devices.

Cool idea, just crappy implementation. Stick to the wireless stuff, at least it is FCC tested and doesn't waste.

As an amateur radio enthusiast, I agree. Stick to an FCC approved, standard wireless system.