Powerline Networking

Powerline networking hit the news several year back for residents in Singapore. The idea was to provide high speed internet connectivity through the regular power cables. As a result, people are looking forward to it as the speed offer is alot more than what the the ISP can provide at that point of time. But I guess it greatly impact the Internet Service Providers hence the project was shelved by the authorities.

The pair of Aztech 200Mbps (Powerline) Ethernet adaptor arrived last night. Thanks Ben. The built of the adaptors felt cheap. It’s probably due to the weight (it is light) and quite hollow sounding. I do prefer hardwares with robust feel (having a certain mass and solid sounding). Well, I guess it is purely my preference. At the end of the day, if the device delivers what it states/promises, I am pretty fine with it.

The very first thing I did with the units was to hook them up to my 100mbps spare switch. I would hook it up to my Gigabit network when I am doing data transfer test in the near future. Hopefully I would be able to free up a couple of ports on my Gigabit switch.

I attempted to set up the homeplugs without referring to the included manuals or softwares.

For the first unit, I hooked it up to my surge protected power strip. Connected the ethernet cable to the 100mbps switch. For the other unit, it was hooked up to my media server and a free wall power socket. Without any configurations, the setup worked. All the 3 leds (PWR, PL-ACT, ETH-LINK/ACT) lighted up. I presume that as long as all of them lights up, I am good to go.

The very next test I did was to get answer to my question. Will the homeplugs work behind my UPS? The reason for this is that all my network equipments and PC are behind a UPS hence the network is always up and running even in the event of short power outrages. Hence I would prefer that the communication link (using powerline networking) to be up as well. The result was quite expected. It doesn’t work behind a UPS.

Dummies test – Passed