NTD and Ethernet over Power

[Gorgeh]

Would my nbn router have a bitch at me if i were to have a ethernet over powerline connecting it to the NTD and would it have issues with the network traffic?
Having it like this saves me having to get another switch just to run the printers that are in my study.

[Rocky]

NBN you say?
Ban him!!

[fleas]

Would my nbn router have a bitch at me if i were to have a ethernet over powerline connecting it to the NTD and would it have issues with the network traffic?
Having it like this saves me having to get another switch just to run the printers that are in my study.

just why would you need 2 internet connection for your home :S?


there's a lot of problems having 2 internet connections.

You probably require a server/router that has 2 WAN connections.

If you just get a unmanaged switch and connect them = massive rape.

I never tried that though but lemme know what happens.





Powerlines are not very reliable since they share the copper wires that provides electricity to appliances that are connected which causes spikes.

It's a hit or miss.

[Aeol]

I've seen people use Ethernet over power before, it sucked so hard, though this was like a decade ago so who knows, maybe its better now?

[Rocky]

Supposedly they have gotten better -
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/net...kit,28937.html

Not that I can vouch for it personally. I've been thinking of getting one for awhile now in a location of the house I cannot possibly run an Ethernet cable through the walls, and wi-fi there is da poop.

[intrik]

Ethernet over power all depends on how your electrical outlets are wired.

What you will find is that some GPO's piggy back off other GPO's. Check out this diagram: http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/images/2/2...ringLayout.gif

Ok, so all electricity works in a circuit of some kind. Every neutral wire will always connect somewhere else, same with active wire. In the diagram I linked, you may have your Ethernet over power hooked up in to a GPO in a ring circuit, that will work okay if they are right next to each other in the circuit, otherwise they might need to hop between multiple GPO connections or maybe some BP connectors before completing the circuit (or in your case completing the end to end of the Ethernet over power connectors).

Ethernet (Cat5/cat6 whatever) is just copper wiring. Power is just copper wiring. All your ethernet over power does is stick an RJ45 connector on the end of copper wiring from power (instead of using copper wiring from a cat5 cable), but there are plenty of variables.

In the diagram I linked as a reference: you may have your ethernet over power connectors plugged in to branch circuits, which means that again it may be able to connect directly without any multiple connections of wires or it may not.

There are other variables too, such as amount of current draw on the circuit, type of wiring used, quality of connections. Maybe there are old BP connectors http://attachments.stareast.com.au/p...G?r=1311231234.

If you can get your hands on a diagram of how your house is wired (or perhaps get an electrician to inspect it), you could find the best path of connecting your ethernet over power devices. Also you might be able to get an idea of what is on what circuit by checking our the circuit breaker/RCD. You might find your hosue has multiple circuits, through trial and error you could turn off all of your circuit breakers and see which GPO's are on the same circuit for the best functionality.

For redundancy purposes you could find that two close GPO's in a room may not be on the same circruit, or they might be.. but elecrtical diagram or trial and error is the only way to find out.

Actually ethernet over power devices work quite well for low use cases (such as I used one to connect a foxtel box to my switch where there was no patching back to my switch, and this worked perfectly fine).

In terms of throughput for sending files over your network to other computers (media sharing/streaming) or playing games (low latency) I wouldn't count on it. But if you just want to hook up a printer......I'd say it would work perfectly fine (depending on your electrical configuration and wiring).

In terms of the original question, your NBN NTU (or whatever they branded it as) is essentially just a switch inside a box with a WIC and some kind of routing functionality. So, if you connect your Ethernet over power to a LAN port (switch port) of the device, and then connect the other end of the ethernet over power to your printer, then essentially you've just created a really long network cable from your NBN router to your printer using your electrical copper wiring. Boom, too easy!

The thing about power is that whatever device is plugged in to a GPO (let's say, your computer you're using right now) is going to draw current through the active wire, the same amount of current then is sent down the neutral wire. If your RCD detects that the amount of current drawn from the active does not equal the same on the neutral as it reaches the RCD, then this is when it trips the breaker. (So, if you stick your fingers in a power point and your body draws electricity from the active wire and the same amount of current doesn't go through the neutral then the RCD will detect this and switch off the circuit so that you don't die). Leaking to earth is a little different, I don't have time to explain it but it works the same way (in terms of detecting the amount of current).

Anyway the point I make about the current draw, if that your electrical wiring (either active or neutral) is going to have different levels of current running through it at any point in time, this is why ethernet over power can vary from really fucking shit to actually usable, depending on SOO many variables.

Good luck though, it will be awesome if it works, if it doesn't work it will frustrate the shit out of you.

Oh, also, check out wireless to LAN bridges. You can extend your wireless network (if you have one) to a device that bridges it to a switch so you can plug your devices that only have the ability to use wired network by bridging it with a wireless bridge device. I used one when I needed to get network to a media PC but all I had at the time was wireless.... and I didn't have a wireless card but I managed to score a free wireless bridge device.

This may be your other alternative to ethernet over power.

[Epic_Wink]

What you have:



What you need:

[Slayar]

i wonder what intrik does in his day job

[Chookz]

I was certain he worked the streets.

[.bomb]

I'm using EOP until I can have my place wired.

Throughput is about half of what Cat6 offers. On pinging my router I get 2-4ms with spikes to 15ms.
All depends on your house. Works fine for me as a stop gap but I'm the only one in the house using it and imo it's better than wireless (for me anyway).

Cat6 has twisted pair cables which are designed to 'spin off' additional electrical interference.