I'm looking for feedback on powerline Ethernet (e.g., HomePlug) from anyone who's used it. I was recently asked to come up with a cheap solution for providing Internet access to guests of small hotels (50 rooms or less). My idea involves using powerline Ethernet to provide in-building backhaul for several wireless access points. One of the powerline Ethernet bridges would be connected to a cable modem.
I realize that powerline Ethernet is a technology mostly used in homes, but I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who's used it in a business environment. How well did it work? Were there any particular problems you ran into?
Thanks in advance.
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3 comments:
For a small hotel HomePlug modems are OK. They have a max of 15 active modems before bad things happen. Second problem is reach. This can be solved by back-to-back logical HomePlug networks, but required set planning.
More expensive, but easier to deploy are modems from http://www.oxance.com/english/home.html. They are based on the HomePlug PHY, but have a smarter MAX. You can see from their homepage that they are targeting hotels.
It's limited and slow. I wouldn't recomend it unless you have no other options.
I have found them not too bad for personal home use where wireles propagation has been a problem, but you are limited to 10MB and have to be careful not to connect via powerboards, extension leads, via UPS, etc and, on top of that, you need to ensure that any pair of transmit/receive units is on the same phase of your power wiring as they don't work across phases.
I really doubt that multiple concurrent HomePlugs would be viable in a small hotel environment.
Philip Argy
pargy@acslink.net.au
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