[andershaig]

This is my first time hearing about PowerLine. Has anyone used it extensively and have any tips and tricks to share?

Wikipedia[1] lists some pros and cons but it's not clear how impactful those cons are in real world scenarios. How does the speed compare to Wifi? Do multiple devices cause issues?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

[vvanders]

Hams hate them since they induce RFI, I'm honestly surprised they are allowed given they basically turn the unshielded wire in your walls into antennas.

[graphe]

Will ham licensing die? The average age is like 60-70 usually, the government kept lowering the requirements to get a license and it's even less popular. I heard they're usually mostly benchmarking distance and truckers listening. Besides apocalypse or maybe wanting to tunnel data through it (illegal) it doesn't seem to serve a real function or benefit.

Family radio and the public channels I heard are full of useless chatter and insults, I can't imagine radio being any better than the internet besides the idea of broadcasting data on it which the government doesn't like.

Because it runs on tattletales that tell the government, if they removed the licensing we'd just get the ability to not illegally (maybe dirty) encrypted long distance messages anonymously. A far superior system than today's.

[Dalewyn]

Powerline ethernet is a decent alternative to ethernet cables or wireless, but there definitely are significant caveats:

* It generates tons of electrical noise, which can wreak havoc on electronics particularly radios.

* The actual connection speed varies greatly by the condition of the copper wiring and generally isn't that great.

* Depending on how the copper wiring is laid out, you might not get a connection between two points.

* Security can be an issue if you don't configure your powerline adapters properly.

[solardev]

They've been very useful in situations where wifi didn't go far enough. I find them to be more reliable and faster than wifi mesh networks, up to a few hundred megabits.

They do come in different speed ratings though, and those still depend on the condition of your house wiring.

Buy them from somewhere with a good return policy and give em a shot.

Moca is another option if you have coax wiring for cable TV in your house. That's nice cuz it doesn't share bandwidth with power lines.

[cj]

I've used powerline once or twice, but I'm a heavy user of MoCa. It's basically the same thing except ethernet over Coax cable. My use case is creating wired backhauls for mesh wifi system (or adding wired AP's where stringing ethernet isn't practical)

[kbouck]

My experience with PowerLine (TPLink) was really awful. Completely unstable and inconsistent performance.

We then switched to MoCA (ActionTec) and it has been about as good as a direct ethernet cable. Consistent performance and stays up for years at a time. No issues ever.

The performance of each likely comes down to how much noice is on the respective wires. Our electrical network is likely crowded and influenced somewhat by neighbors. However our coax was completely unused and I disconnected it from the outside world (for privacy and noise reduction)

If you have coax outlets in locations useful for networking, I would definitely consider using MoCA instead of PowerLine.

[sokoloff]

I have it deployed in my attic (one sender in basement, one receiver in attic) because so far I’ve been too lazy to pull Cat6 up there.

I get about 35Mbps and it’s a little flaky, but I haven’t tried to troubleshoot it. It serves my minimal use case (streaming to a very rarely used guest bedroom TV).

I’d use anything else in most cases (including pulling fiber to my detached garage rather than using power line to galvanically isolate the networks).

I’ve not tested it, but my understanding is that powerline networking will not pass (or pass well) a surge suppressor (which might be a problem if you have an updated electrical panel with whole house suppression).

[bdavbdav]

I think I’m one of the few that have had great luck with it. We’ve got an outbuilding which is on a separate circuit than the ring main in the house which has the other end. It still gets a solid 120mbps and no meaningful packet loss, dropouts etc.