HDTV Almanac - The Power of a Home Network

[alfredpoor]

You now have more reasons than ever to connect your HDTV to the Internet (or to some device that connects to the Internet), but many people don’t have an outlet for their home network in the living room. A wireless WiFi connection is not always the answer, as it may not have sufficient bandwidth to [...]

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2010/11/hdtv-almanac-the-power-of-a-home-network.php]Read Column[/url]

[Robz]

It’s an interesting device. I worked on a similar device many years ago. The data rate was only about 1200 baud; technology has come a long way since that time. However there may be unintended consequences. House wiring may behave like an antenna, especially knob and tube type wring. When the power line data device is connected to the house wiring, interference to the HF spectrum and maybe even VHF spectrum may occur. A nearby HF communications receiver may suffer degraded reception. Similarly, a nearby transmitter may disrupt the power line communications. The concept is similar to the power utility using wiring for broad band over power line. The ARRL fought a long and hard struggle against the likely interference to licensed services. http://www.arrl.org/broadband-over-powerline-bpl

Robert

[alfredpoor]

Thanks for the comments, Robert. I know that Powerline is not a perfect technology, and in some older homes, it may not work if the circuits are separated. Still, it does provide a high-speed alternative where standard wired or wireless solutions won't work. My friend Peter Cook (formerly half of the "CompuDudes" in Philadelphia) used to live in a row home from the WWII era. He couldn't use WiFi because the rooms had plaster walls (pre-sheetrock) that used expanded metal lathe for support. In effect, each room was its own Farraday Cage and effectively blocked RF transmissions. Powerline technology would have been very helpful to him back then.

Alfred

[ccclvib]

From my own experience of two years ago, things have probably gotten LOTS better if all you have to do is press a button for configuration. It took, if I remember correctly, almost a week(!) to get my two powerline units to work properly. Once they were working, however, I almost forgot about them!

One of the other issues from then is the fact both ends of the network circuit had to be on the same circuit breaker (it may still be true, and it's something for anyone contemplating using powerline technology to consider.) In my case the connection was from one end of a room to the other (32 feet.) My computer and router were at one end of the room and I wanted to connect my Dish Network receiver and my DVD player at my home theater setup to the Internet. The results were as good as could be expected.

Interestingly, just recently I had the opportunity to connect via Uverse for TV and Internet. That connection, for obvious reasons was brought in to the house at the end of the room where my TV and DVD players are. It also meant my Internet connection was now at that end. Simply converting my router to a switch and using the Uverse gateway as the router (with the powerline connection now being used more-or-less in reverse) took care of what would have been a lot of effort to connect everything. Now the DVD player gets its Internet connection directly from the Uverse gateway instead of through the powerline connection.

Serendipity.