Home Phoneline Networking Works!

[Corduroy]

For those who have doubted my ability to set up a home phoneline network and have doubted the technology itself I'd like to take this time to say:

IN YOUR FACE!

I have three computers (soon to be four via a network bridge) sharing the DSL connection in our house over the phonelines. The connection is only 10Mbps, but it is well worth the sacrifice in speed to avoid running cables all over my parent's house while I'm only going to be here this summer.

I found that HPNA is completely easy to set up on the software side of things. Simply by installing the cards on my computers (all running XP Pro) the networking was up and running.

The only problems encountered were related to connection loss. I found that using the shortest amount of phone cord possible for connecting the boxes is good rule to follow. HPNA, or Home Phonline Networking Association NICs can only send their signal down 1000 feet of home phoneline. This required me to actually run a phonecord in order to bypass some of the extra wire we have in our walls. This was what I wanted to avoid, but it still saved me money as 100 feet of phone cord retails for $10.00 here, whereas network cabling would costs more, especially with ends, and it's not as easy to run through windows (on my house, not in my computer).

All in all, it only took a few hours of fiddling, which would be reduced if this was applied to a smaller house with a more common telephone system. I recommend it to any residential user. It should be plug and play in most situations. For those without XP, the netgear cards I bough come with sharing software for 95, 98, and NT 4. 2000 support is on the netgear website and XP drivers were shipped with XP. If you have questions on this feel free to ask.

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

[Andy]

Good work :thumb: , but in Australia, this solution is a lot less practical.

1) most houses only have 2 or 3 phone line connectors and are usually not in the rooms you want then to be in.
2) it is very hard to find phone line NICs in Australia (to my knowledge anyways)

[Beefy]

Backing up andy's point 2... I can honestly say i've never seen one in this country...

[Wiggo]

Hah in Australia a lot of homes are lucky to have more than 1 connector as they have to be paid for after the house is built and not like other countries where these are installed during the building process. :smokin:
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[Mr. C]

Thank goodness for the ol' crawlspace.
If your house sits on a slab it would be a chore though.
I've added phone jacks to my place a few times with little effort or expense.
Interesting that the NIC's are so hard to find down-under:confused:

[Wiggo]

It's not so much nic's as finding any phoneline networking kits or parts but I'd rather the speed of the cat5 cable that runs around here anyway. :smokin:
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[FA-MAS]

The cool thing is, if you need a hub. Bam! go to a hardware store and buy a splitter. Instant hub.

[Corduroy]

I didn't realize that Australia didn't have the same method of phoneline installation as America has. Am I to understand that phones are installed after the building process? Isn't that a little inefficient and messy? Someone explain if just for my curiosity.

Even if a house has a few phone jacks, it's still more convenient than running lines throught the entire house. The splitting of conections is also a lot less expensive, as was stated above.

[Wiggo]

Yes a lot different here as the owner of a house being built must make arrangements for the phoneline connection to be done themselves in most cases as the house is being built plus there are still homes here that don't have a connection at all, though these are getting few and far between now. But as I said before I'd rather the speed of Cat5 cable thru the roof cavity. :smokin:
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