getting wifi to the dead zones of a big house (2nd DSL Modem and router combo?)

...or the orifice that exudes it.

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:59:57 -0800, dgates wrote in :

Of course not. Thanks. Bill is just acting like a jerk (as usual).

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:11:35 -0800 (PST), bod43 wrote in :

Yep.

Nah, that would be insulting.... to the horse!

I'll extricate myself from this thread after this post, but I just wanted to post one more time since, when I needed help, John Navas typed thousands of words, answering all of my questions over the course of about a week, until I finally had my house networked the way I needed.

Anyone rereading this thread will see that:

John Navas offered a concrete solution that will cost less than $100.

A few other users also offered suggestions.

Two users, "Bill Kearney" and "Not Me," chimed in, using an (admittedly clever) insult about horse shit and ice cream to insult the guy who offered the concrete advice. They offered no advice themselves.

The original poster seems to be long gone, probably run for the hills. Or maybe he just bought the $70 powerline device, got it working in an hour, and forgot to come back and say thanks.

Any chance that John or any other helpful soul has access to any Cisco product with exposure to the 'Net who could help test a GRE tunnel problem between Cisco and OpenBSD?

We need someone who can sniff packets on his end to see if there are any anomalies with GRE encapsulation or fragmentation or anything else that prevents Cisco routers from de-encapsulating GRE packets from OpenBSD (no problem on this end, we see traffic on the tunnel just fine).

Michael

Sure we did. Don't use powerline devices. They're overpriced crap.

Much as I try to stay on topic, I have to chime in and agree on this. I'm sure there's some history that the rest of us don't know about, but if I could block posters in google groups, it would be the ones who constantly disrupt threads to make ugly comments and carry on personal vendettas, not John Navas who simply repeatedly posts a thread about wireless security that is presumably for newcomers, though i suppose it's seen as horn-blowing.

I can ignore that repeating thread, but this constant sniping within the real help threads is noisy and making me want to switch to a newsreader and start blocking Bill and other one or two others.

Bill has been helpful at times, but this sniping is annoying and mostly out of form for this group.

First time I used them, they worked like a charm. That house now has three Netgear 103s and I'm their hero for getting internet working throughout their house while over for Thanksgiving. Took about 2 hours after going to the store.

Since then, I bought a couple used/NOS ones for around $30 on Amazon and Ebay and I've found they (Netgear 102 and 103) work in some places and don't in others.

I understand that there are several Powerline standards which perform differently and then some products/manufactures are going to be more reliable than others, so it's hard to generalize, perhaps best to investigate a particular standard and model.

I don't agree that they are crap. They are networking devices/systems

- like wireless - that facilitate networking- sometimes, in some situations, and are problematic or useless in others.

Unlike wireless, they are typically very easy to setup - when they work.

Steve

As I said in a previous post "I was one of those who had XE103's which overheated". This was an EU problem due to the 220v supply but ever since then I don't like to recommend them to people who are going to leave them switched on 24/7, mine took about 6 months to fail.

When IEEE 1901 is finally agreed and they also become interoperable they will become more widely used.

I agree they have their place and people do need to investigate their suitability for whatever problem they are trying to overcome. I have yet to be convinced over the distance they are supposed to work due to noise generated on the lines and "attenuation" or noise generated going through consumer units, the latter may just have been one off as I only tried to get them working at one location where the signal had to go through 2 consumer units, separated by 30 metres, to a garage and the performance was unreliable. If you have any household items which generate noise they can affect the signal e.g. electric drills and in my case I had problems with 4 DECT chargers connected at the same time. Some of the Homeplug units are not notch-filtered to prevent interference with amateur radio so you again need to do your homework.

Apart from whatever 220V issues the XE102s have, the wireless version

- The WGX102- is said to have overheating problems on 110v circuits also.

I never recommend them for that reason, and only use mine occasionally to extend networks when visiting friends and family. Personally, I'm on the lookout for another brand that is better designed.

So, to back-pedal a bit, perhaps Bill's comment IS accurate when it comes to these wireless versions (and others?)

Again, do the research (I critically study Amazon and Newegg reviews) before choosing a model- but don't dismiss them out of hand. Powerline networking is a solution for some people.

I'm interested in peoples experiences with the other brands. Anyone used Belkin, Linksys, Trendnet, Zyxel?

steve

You will find that a lot of the brands use the same Intellon chipsets.

If you wish to browse through some of their white papers etc.

did you forget to carry the one? (op was talking about 103's, you about

102's.... that's one off :)

Yes. Welcome to usenet. Spare us your false piety.

Good point. 103 is one system, 102 other, IIRC.

I was having a read at dslrepots today and came across this:-

Belkins response

Great info, thanks. The link showing clients for Intellon seems to indicate that most brands are using the same chips and therefore will perform similarly, but this can be misleading. For example, Netgear XE103 uses Homeplug 1.0 Turbo, but their HDX101 uses the competing DS-2 system which appears to have higher "clean-line" numbers, but lower performance in the field than the HomePlug AV.

And then one can see that there is a huge difference between HomePlug

1.0, 1.0 Turbo and HomePlug AV. So it's still important to check each series for each brand. Cutting to the bottom line, though, it appears that HomePlug AV is the most robust. Linksys and Zyxel are using this, Netgear and Buffalo is not.

By the way, here's an incredible value for HomePlug AV:

Just buy two of these suckers and forget the dedicated/specialized devices.

I wonder if this is where routers are headed - Wireless/Powerline/ Router/Firewall/switch all rolled into one for $29 _____________________________________

Back to following up on your links,

The performance testing white paper by Intellon is interesting-

Excerpts:

Devices that serve as noise impairments have greatest impact when they are located close to the receiving PLC device. When a device is suspected to be a serious noise impairment, simply unplug it to see if the throughput improves. If improvement is realized, move the offending device to another location or plug it into an EMI suppressing power strip.

Noise cohabitation is a fact of life for PLC networks, but that does not mean that PLC networking is not practical or viable. What it does mean is that the best PLC technology must be identified and carefully selected. Not all PLC technologies are created equal and neither should all PLC technologies be judged by the poor performance of some.

And then this:

1.5. The Coax Medium Intellon=92s HomePlug AV standard-based RD6000-ETH Ethernet Powerline Adapter Reference Design offers hybrid media capability for networking over powerline and coax. The coax medium is referred to as a =93clean line=94, meaning there is very little noise to serve as communication impairments. While the performance of Intellon=92s reference design is superior to other PLC technologies over the more-noisy powerline medium, its performance is improved still more over the quiet coax medium. Where conveniently available, the coax medium may offer an increase in throughput. A point to note here is that the throughput rate (UDP) on a clean line is limited by the 100- Mbps Ethernet interface rather than the HomePlug AV technology.

So does this mean we can adapt these devices to use existing coax installations as well?

Some more interesting links:

Wow. I had certainly seen this kind of thing on software reviews (download.com) but now will take a more critical eye to the product reviews also.

Of course most of us have seen Belkin's performance first hand. I ignore their products by default.

My problem here is the extra cost to the installation when having to provide EMI suppression. I was used to business solutions for this and products were expensive so did not consider this viable at the time. I don't know what kind of prices are involved for home use in the US.

H3C were supposed to be trialling the int6300 for EOC, Ethernet over Coax, in 2008 but on quick check of their website I couldn't find any reference to any of this.