Networking over AC lines – a bad idea
Connectivity experts Belkin are touting a new product they say is super-ultra fast and better than any other Powerline devices. I congratulate them. Now I’ll tell you why I think you should never try it.
No offense to Belkin, but my problem is with Powerline — which is a system that transmits/receives Ethernet information over the AC electrical lines in the walls of your home. It puts the digitized data information into your home wiring system and then lets you extract that signal from any AC outlet.
My problem is not with the system – but with the technology that it’s adding a lot of extra information and noise into your electrical lines. That could mean extra audio noise in your stereo, and extra video noise on your TVs and computer monitors – depending on how well they filter out extraneous information.
To date, some of the worst offenders of adding noise to your AC are lighting fixture dimmers. I have a number of AC noise filters installed around my home (and I’m not alone.) When you turn on a light with a dimmer – in an adjacent room – the filter’s blue light blinks like crazy. Turn off the light and it stops blinking.
I’m sure using Powerline networking is safe – and hopefully is far less noise inducing – buy why would add additional signals to your electricity when you can use wired Ethernet or Wi-Fi wireless to do the same thing? You still need to plug Powerline into some sort of network router to access your high-speed Internet connection. In most cases those routers have Wi-Fi built in anyway.
After all this, if you’re still interested, Belkin’s new system is said to be able to handle very fast data streams (such as HD video) and are incredibly easy to install, set-up and use.
Belkin has a Gigabit Powerline HD starter kit – with a transmitter and receiver (both plug into separate AC outlets) for $150. Knock yourself out. I’ll stick with my super-fast Ruckus Wi-Fi router for now.
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