Wifi Vs Powerline?

[p_brownstone]

I am setting up a simple Home / Office Network but part of my house is “shaded” from the main PC by thick walls.

I am looking at using either a WiFi Repeater or Powerline technology – where the buildings' Mains Electricity reticulation conveys the signal / data.

I am not transferring a lot of Data at the moment but I may in future and I understand that WiFi Repeaters can limit the “pipe” so I am leaning more towards Powerline.

Is there anyone who has any experience of this in Thailand and can outline the pros and cons of each system? I am unsure if Powerline would work well when there is a Multi-socket UPS between the main computer and the socket for example.

Finally can anyone suggest a specific shop in Thailand which sells Powerline equipment? I have seen it on Shop4Thai but would prefer to actually see various models before I buy.

Patrick

[p_brownstone]

No one using Powerline type connections then?

Patrick

[Merlin]

to answer your question directly: no.

I haven't used powerline, nor do I know anyone using it.

I think your point about the UPS getting in the way is valid.

The thing is, are you really stuck with a "cordless" type solution?

This is Thailand - you could get someone out to run some CAT5 for next to nothing. . .

[monty]

Hi Patrick,

I have used quite a lot of power line equipment.

I found the technology to have just as much black magic attached as wifi, mainly regarding black spots in the house/office where no or only very slow connections can be made.

Obviously wiring quality and especially interference generators (washing machine, hair dryer, ...) can influence speeds.

When you have a proper connection, speeds can be OK, but just as with Wifi, they'll never come even close to what is claimed.

The stuff I used was from Corinex, apparently the best equipment you can get for this kind of thing. They also do Data over coax (together with your television signals) equipment.

Corinex claims 200 mbit/sec, practically you'll get around 50-70 Mbps, which of course is better then most run of the mill Wifi equipment will handle, especially at longer differences.

It's also quite a bit more expensive then wifi, with a powerline to LAN adapter needed at every PC, costing 100+ US$ each!

I had a quick look at the stuff on shop4thai, and it all seems to be based on the (also by Corinex developed) 85 Mbps technology. Would stay away from that one though as practical speeds will be under 20 Mbps, much lower then what you'll get with Wifi.

UPS is not an issue, since you can put the power line to LAN adapter before the UPS, and run the lan cable from there to your PC.

Although some cable TV companies use corinex equipment to distribute internet to their customers (Supernet Pattaya) I haven't seen there stuff in shops yet over here.

I obviously don't know your home/office lay out, but in order of best quality I would recomend you do the following:

Try, if at all possible, to pull a LAN cable to another room (through the thick wall) and hook up a Wifi access point there. Cheap as chips and best performance. This is how bigger installations are done, Wifi to the end users, but a cabled LAN network as backbone feeding the access points.

If you really can't pull a cable, but are lucky enough to have TV cable in both rooms (Coax), you can use the corinex equipment to use the coax as backbone instead of the above mentioned LAN cable. BTW, with their coax technology, you do not have to worry about interference, and it carries over very long distances (over 1 km).

If all the above fails, you'll have to do the repeater thingy, but you are indeed correct that you will lower the throughput by roughly half. No real problem for regular stuff, but streaming video might get chopped up then!

Hope this helps a bit.

[Crossy]

I've not seen the units here. My dad uses them in the UK and says they work well, better than Wifi in his old stone cottage.

The units must be plugged in to the wall, they don't work through a UPS (well his don't anyway).