Comtrend PowerGrid 902 Powerline Ethernet Adapters Review

Ed, thanks. The point i was trying to make was that 100Mbps Ethernet Adapters are actually 200Mbps when in full duplex mode, ie you can transmit and recieve at 100Mbps at the same time, so their not actually lying, they are just using the ethernet connection statistics to say what you connect to the individual point via lan cable at, knowing full well that you will never reach the full 100Mbps upload and 100Mbps download at the same time. That said I do think that this is a very good product, and very reliable technology. Much better than wireless, as in my experience it is much more stable a connection than wireless, just wish that companies would be more honest with their connection statistics.

Power Line Adapters (PLAs) whilst seemingly a good solution to home
networking are essentially a very poor technology. They pollute the
radio spectrum, interfere with your neighbours radio (preventing
reception of Short Wave broadcasts) and do not adhere to the European
EMC directives.

They rely upon your internal house wiring to pass signals between
units. Unfortunately, your house wiring is a good ariel and these
signals go far beyond your house, many 100s of yards and in some cases
get into external telephone lines and street wiring and have even been
known to radiate from lamp posts. The units effectively become the
same as an illegal radio transmitter.

The government and OFCOM know the problems regarding PLAs and will
respond when complaints are made by your neighbours, by removing the
devices, so please ensure that the retailer has a sale or return
policy. In a lot of cases involving BT, this translates to BT
replacing the PLAs with CAT5 cabling.

Home networking has a perfectly good wireless system based on the IEEE
802.11 standard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11). This
is commonly called WiFi and operates at frequencies (2.4GHz) that do
not interfere with other equipment. It is legal, adheres to all
European EMC directives and allows you to transfer your broadband and
gaming system throughout the house.

There are campaigns afoot both at local and governmental level to have
PLAs removed from the shops and banned. Australia has already taken
steps to ban PLA devices.

So in reality, they are not such a good idea after all.

Steve Redway :
Power Line Adapters (PLAs) whilst seemingly a good solution to home
networking are essentially a very poor technology : I believe that the 50mbps (real world usage) I manage to get from my powerline adaptors demonstrates that this technology is very far from poor. I get 4 times the performance I had from my old 802.11g network.

Unfortunately, your house wiring is a good ariel and these
signals go far beyond your house, many 100s of yards and in some cases
get into external telephone lines and street wiring and have even been
known to radiate from lamp posts : Whilst maybe true, maybe not - As the signals are encrypted why would this worry me? I cannot comment on the legality but the hundreds of thousands of these devices that are currently being used in the UK demonstrate that perhaps the legality issue that you raise isn't quite the issue you make it out to be.

In a lot of cases involving BT, this translates to BT replacing the PLAs with CAT5 cabling : So why do BT still sell them? and can you quantify this please? I find it hard to believe BT have replaced many (if any?) houses powerline installations with CAT5.

Home networking has a perfectly good wireless system based on the IEEE
802.11 standard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11) : 802.11g (which was the best avaiable when i constructed my network) was woefully inadaquete when streaming HD video, Powerline does it fantastically. A brief trial of 802.11N has shown it to be just about satisfactory, however as soon as other traffic goes over the network i get frequent stuttering /buffering of video.

Australia has already taken steps to ban PLA devices : I do not live in australia.

Hello, Can you help me with a question please? If I connect 1 Comtrend PLA to my modem (sfr-neufbox .. I live in France and these have just become available here)and I plug the other in downstairs, having configured them both as you describe; will I be able to connect my Linksys WRT54GL router to the EP and configure the Linksys as an access point to extend my wifi network? We live in an old stone house and the wifi won't reach from one end to the other, despite the modem being at the highest point I can get it!
Thanks in advance - any suggestions gratefully received.