powerline networking

I am using these in my home to share a broadband internet connection. They (you need at least 2) are easy to install and are not influenced by any other electronic devices in the house (I also have some X10 controlled devices). They even work across legs of the house power, which the X10 will not do. I have tested the speed, and they are as fast as being connected directly to the cable modem. The data is encrypted for privacy. I'd recommend these to anyone desiring to set up a home network who do not want to run cables or depend on the vagueries of wireless. You can connect up to 16 of them.

As a networking "internals" guy, I was shocked to find that this product is fundamentally broken at the network layer.

What people are complaining about here is that the device suddenly stops working and must be unplugged and plugged back in again.

This is because the device is trying to be too smart, and is losing track of which power-line modules connect to which computers. Unfortunately, in doing so, it prevents the network-level broadcast facilities from working. The broadcast facility I'm talking about most (ARP, the address resolution protocol) would have automatically corrected the problem if the Linksys box wasn't so broken.

In essence, for all you tech guys and gals, is that a learning bridge should never "learn" the broadcast address.

If you have only PCs, and you load the Linksys driver, they do some magic to keep the devices from falling over dead... But if you mix in a non-pc (Linux, UNIX, Macintosh) using a hub off the end of your power-line device, you're guaranteed to be frustrated.

The symptoms are that some of the network works (whatever was working before the bridge tables got corrupted) and others stop working with no explanation. The box "selectively" forwards traffic, and becomes deaf to other traffic.

It's like being at a cocktail party, and having every third person not be able to hear you, and saying "Over here!" (as ARP does) doesn't help either.

Ugh. In my experience, this is somewhat typical of Linksys products... If you have a windows PC, you're fine. If you have anything else, they won't talk to you.

I switched to the Siemens power-line module, and it has been working just fine for me.

I prefer NetGear for a "HomePlug" compliant product. More reliable. Better utility software, let's user see other devices on the network and base speed of connection between "PowerLine" devices.

In general I like Linksys products and have used them a lot of them over the last 4-5 years. Friends home's, small offices. Work well.

I installed a pair of PLEBR10s and found that only about 30% of the outlet pairs I tested them in would work or even get a connection between the 2 devices.

Nothing in the Linksys Software to test speed. Resorted to simple file transfers and a clock. Using this method I found the best pair of outlets to use.

I continued testing over a one week period. Test pair would loose connection and need to be unpluged/pluged to restore the connection. Also experienced a lot of speed variation: ok to not useable. Variation could not be attributed to appliances or other devices in use. Just seemed to go from good to bad to no connection.

Replaced with the Netgear product and all my troubles disappeared. More pairs of outlets would connect (easy to see with NetGear utility), speed was constant, no lost connections even under harsh condidtions (various appliances running).

There is not a lot of information available for users to troubleshoot these devices or the conditions in which they are most likely to operate full. Only thing I found was that the maximum "wire distance" between the 2 outlets should be less that 1,000 feed. No surge protectors in the circuit.

Linksys technical support wasn't of much help. It may be that one or both of my units were defective. I will continue to test and continue to talk to Linksys.

My out-of-the-box experience was much better with NetGear product. I look forward to their new version (602?) of the device.