Netgear and DS2 introduce 200 Mbps Powerline HD solution

Homeowners with wireless dead spots or the need to stream HD content from room-to-room will soon have a new option from Netgear and Design of Systems on Silicon to pipe data through a building's existing electrical infrastructure. This new 200Mbps Powerline HD technology uses DS2 chipsets to allow bandwith-hungry multimedia content to be streamed from a PC to products in any room with an electrical outlet, providing plug-and-play convenience at the expense of wireless freedom, as devices on the receiving end of the signal must remain tethered to the wall. The new Netgear/DS2 hardware will be on display next month at CeBIT, and should be available to consumers sometime in the second quarter of this year.

[Reinhard Haberfellner @ Feb 23rd 2006 4:46AM]

Lord have mercy , how long does it take until this powerline thing - which has been proven so often to be just the wrong technological approach - will rest in peace. Do we really want to live in a shower of RF because some boys just dont get it that an unshielded piece of wire is a bad idea for transmitting RF signals? Do we really want disturbing hiss and clicks in all our sound systems ? Or troubles with cellular, handhelds and whatever because there is an uncontrolled transmitter in all our walls?
I dont think so , all powerline fieldtrials failed , all major wireless vendors left the idea in the wastebasket , but again it comes creeping out. Only thinking technicians could really kill it .

[lettcco @ Feb 23rd 2006 5:05AM]

@#1,

it's not talking about BPL--this is home networking solution...

you ham radio die-hard should put a sock in it already.

[blahblah @ Feb 23rd 2006 6:05AM]

This is an ideal solution, actually, since you have to plug-in to an electrical outlet for power anyway. You could just split the power cord in two behind your plasma - one lead would go into the power port, the other into whatever this device will be (unless I'm missing something technical that would proclude this). To the observer, there would still apear to be a single powercord going into the TV and, if your outlet happens to also be behind your TV, there'd be no cables at all! Perfect! :)

[blahblah @ Feb 23rd 2006 6:09AM]

#1: Do you also believe that, were people meant to fly, we'd have been born with wings? Don't be so damned ignorant, it's a mere enginerring issue, in both cases...

[Karl Viklund @ Feb 23rd 2006 6:19AM]

Pretty cool. I don't agree with #1, this "powerline thing" is dead or should die. I think can be a very usefull technology and 200 Mbit is very impressive. I have seen 10 Mbit before and 200 Mbit is a huge step forward.

[Deadbeef @ Feb 23rd 2006 6:54AM]

Why does everyone kick #1's *ss?? Although the prospect of transimitting my data through the powersocket is great, #1 does call the attention to some issues that aren't contradicted by the one's kicking and shouting!

[Bone @ Feb 23rd 2006 8:35AM]

I was involved with DS2 3 or 4 years ago in something, er, confidential, but I was deeply involved so I now the technology quite well. In DS2's homemarket, Spain (if I may say so as it's obviously an international company), the powerline business is operating with mixed success (the PLC service has recently been cancelled in one town but it's a success in another) and no problems with RF signals have been detected. The powerline technology is a perfect solution to develop broadband access in small communities and, additionally, to provide networking capabilities.

The funny thing is how a technology may be adapted to other purposes, as 3 years ago home/office networking was not as widespread as it is right now and the main advantage of the technology was in terms of access. Nowadays, I believe the business case of PLC may be built around networking rather than on access. DSL has proved to be a relatively cheap and highly efficient alternative, erasing part of the PLC competitive advantage (low infrastructure cost).

[AndyB @ Feb 23rd 2006 9:14AM]

I've got the 85mbps version of powerline, and get significantly better throughput that any of the pre-n wireless routers currently available. This allows me to stream WMV-HD around my appartment, whereas even pre-n didn't quite make it due to limited range. I eagerly await the 200mbps version ! I agree with the above poster, it's a great solution. The only reason you need wireless really is for a notebook, as mentioned above everything else is tethered to the wall for power anyway.

[Lummox @ Feb 23rd 2006 10:18AM]

@ #3: The only preclusion to splitting off power plugs is that you can't use a surge suppressor as the device will see the data signals as a surge in the power line, and strip them off. There are some new surge suppressors coming onto the market that have HomePlug-friendly ports on them, and you can use power bars/extension cords that do not have surge suppression. Still, you could plug the new NetGear device directly into the wall, and anything else you have (TV, components, etc) into a power bar.

[Crazyglues @ Feb 23rd 2006 10:20AM]

Wow, this would be perfect for my xbox 360 needs because I have a wireless router but it's so far upstairs that the xbox struggles to get a good fast connect so I thought maybe just run a hard line (the ethernet cable) all the way downstairs or get a better wireless connection.... this looks like it would be the better of the two.

[BobieD @ Feb 23rd 2006 10:41AM]

The Netgear 85 Mbps product only really got 2-3 Mbps throughput... So maybe this product will get 5-6 Mbps. And I agree with #1. From an engineering aspect, power line is terrible (turn on a hair dryer, microwave, stove, etc. and your network goes down).

I have an in home network over my coax by a company called Coaxsys. I'm actually somewhat surprised because the throughput I get is actually what's stated... how rare now a days.

[drtardis @ Feb 23rd 2006 11:04AM]

PLease, more about your coax configuration @home.
How much does it cost for such a setup? We are talking about IP over Coax right?

.drt

[BobieD @ Feb 23rd 2006 12:21PM]

drtardis, I was put intouch with an installer (off Coaxsys's website). He did the actual installation. I have cable TV from Comcast on the same coax (HD). It's great. I ship mpeg2 HD throughout my house from my central server (runs like a champ). And that's at 20 Mbps, not your wmv-hd or mpeg4 which are substantially smaller.

I payed $199 per unit. More expensive than the Netgear product... but you get what you pay for.

[plympton @ Feb 23rd 2006 12:21PM]

> From an engineering aspect, power line is terrible
> (turn on a hair dryer, microwave, stove, etc. and
> your network goes down).

actually, I have a Siemens Powerline network in my house - the only way I could get streaming audio into my kitchen. Works flawlessly - and it's plugged into the SAME outlet as the microwave. I'm a real believer. Sure, X-10 is crap, but it doesn't mean all approaches suck. If 200 MB is cheap ($50 / port), then I probably won't run Cat-5 in my next (80 year old) house to every room - just from the server to the workstation where I need gigabit.

-Dan

[WhyNotV2 @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:07PM]

There was or are studies being done, more than studies actually, about delivering high speed internet to homes through the electrical system in your home. I read about it maybe 2 years ago that they were testing it in an entire community. I don't know what happened to it. DId it fail? Did it work? Did it work and the major internet companies freak out and buy the rights to it so no one will ever use it?

[Mike T @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:44PM]

Poster 15 - I though that broadband over powerlines never really worked. Enron was a big pusher of that, and we all know how that worked out.

[doodie @ Feb 23rd 2006 3:17PM]

#9, no way a surge suppressor even know digital signals are even on the line. Surge suppressors are for HUGE surges, not anything like super small carrier wave stuff that the NetGear device would use. Designed correctly the noise generated by other AC devices, hair dryers, etc, is all filtered out and should not affect the network AT ALL. This technology, when working properly, should be better than wireless and obviously better than stringing cat5, as it uses what everyone already has in their house. The only reason its not the rage is pricing.

[Ed Hare @ Feb 24th 2006 7:57AM]

"BPL" covers both in-premise and access applications, so, yes, this is indeed broadband over power lines, in every sense of the word. There is a difference between in-premise applications and access BPL, though; the intererence potential of in-premise BPL is limited to the general area of the premises involved, while access BPL signals can be heard along long stretches of overhead power lines. I have personally found that strong BPL signals near an injection point were strong for over a half mile of overhead line.

The premise of BPL sounds pretty exciting -- every AC outlet being an access port to the Internet and/or an access port to a home network. Most consumers don't think of the nature of the wires behind those outlets, though, or that an electrical wire is different than a coaxial cable wire or is different than Category 5 Ethernet wiring. If those types of wire were not necessary to carry high-speed signals reliably, they would never have been used in the first place.

DS2 chipsets use radio spectrum, and when put onto wiring that radiates any radio signals on them, they can and do cause interference locally. The FCC has limits on their radiated emissions, but locally, signals at those limits will cause harmful interference to any local use of radio on the same spectrum. In residential areas, this will include Amateur Radio, CB and the reception of international shortwave broadcast.

As an organization representing Amateur Radio, ARRL has been addressing interference issues related to access and in-premise BPL. This has ranged from its cooperation with HomePlug to help them decide to incluce protection for Amateur Radio in its standards to ARRL's work with the utilities deploying access BPL.

ARRL's BPL page at http://www.arrl.org/bpl provides information about BPL interference issues, links to balanced news articles about BPL and links to audio and video recordings showing BPL interference.

Ed Hare, [e-mail], Tel: [phone]

[badbob001 @ Feb 25th 2006 10:30PM]

I can't wait for this to come out. My family has two apartments on opposite sides of a condominium and are a floor apart. I want to share the internet, phone (via voip adapters), and cable tv (via media center) from one apartment to another instead of paying for every service twice.

If I were just interested in internet and phone, wireless is just about in range, but it's too slow for tv streaming and who knows when 802.11n will be available. Besides that, wireless is a pain if the best location for the APs may be FAR away from the gear that needs the connection. I couldn't run cat5 over the roof, so I needed another solutions...

For giggles, I bought a pair of 1.0 homeplug adapters and amazingly I got a connection between the two apartments, which are at least 1000 feet apart. I've kept a continuous ping going and I haven't seen a anything dropped. I'll be returning the adapters since Homeplug 1.0 is too slow for my needs, and the turbo 85mbps version is really just twice as fast as 1.0. But now that I know it works and granted that if Homeplug AV can give me at least 10mbps, I'll be ready to buy.

[Satish Narayanan @ Mar 27th 2007 3:20AM]

I have just purchased the Netgear's Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter Kit (HDXB101). Since then my radio/clock has a constant humming sound in the background. If I switch off the Powerline adapter, the hum stops. Has anyone else had this problem. Any solutions?