LINUXMCE network based on a powerline ethernet LAN

[Camver2005]

Hello everyone,

Please let me start apologise if this topic has been already handled but with the search function could not find any answer.

Would really like to get working on a complete linuxmce network in my home, but I have no chance to get CAT5 or more cabling in my home as it is a old building.

Could I base the all system on a powerline ethernet network (true the power outlets) maybe combined with some wired CAT 5 where I can?

Is this possible?

Thank you very much for your support

Maurice 

[totallymaxed]

Hello everyone,

Please let me start apologise if this topic has been already handled but with the search function could not find any answer.

Would really like to get working on a complete linuxmce network in my home, but I have no chance to get CAT5 or more cabling in my home as it is a old building.

Could I base the all system on a powerline ethernet network (true the power outlets) maybe combined with some wired CAT 5 where I can?

Is this possible?

Thank you very much for your support

Maurice 

Hi Maurice,

PowerLine 200mb (or the new 1Gig units) will work fine with LinuxMCE...but you will need to check out the mains power cabling in your property to actually know for sure whether it will provide enough 'real world bandwidth' for your LAN.

All the best

Andrew

[Camver2005]

Thank you Andrew,

the minimum will be 100 mb right???

this was of great help

best regards

Maurice

[wierdbeard65]

I may be wrong (frequently am!) but if you are running multiple MDs simultaneously, then contention will become an issue.

Most modern Cat5 networks are now fully switched. This means that each device has dedicated bandwidth to the switch device and this bandwidth is duplex (so can transmit and receive at the same time).

Powerline systems work more like the old 10Base2 system with a contention based, shared media. If two devices both try to communicate at the same time, there will be a collision and both will back off for a random period of time before re-trying (the theory being that since the back-off is random, they won't collide again). As the number of devices increases, however, so does the chance of a collision. The result is that you get less than the total bandwidth available as well as dividing the available bandwidth between the devices (and not even a fair division!)

Overall, it may well work, depending on the number of devices and the simultaneous usage, but you won't know completely until you try. Even then, you may have odd problems occurring from time to time, which will be difficult to reproduce and therefore trace.

If you can, I would use Cat5 anywhere you can and only use the powerline in places where it really is impossible to run more cables in.

The lesson to any future builders is, ALWAYS leave conduit in the walls to allow cabling to be run at a later date without needing walls and floors to be ripped open!

Just my 10 Eurocents 

[totallymaxed]

I may be wrong (frequently am!) but if you are running multiple MDs simultaneously, then contention will become an issue.

Most modern Cat5 networks are now fully switched. This means that each device has dedicated bandwidth to the switch device and this bandwidth is duplex (so can transmit and receive at the same time).

Powerline systems work more like the old 10Base2 system with a contention based, shared media. If two devices both try to communicate at the same time, there will be a collision and both will back off for a random period of time before re-trying (the theory being that since the back-off is random, they won't collide again). As the number of devices increases, however, so does the chance of a collision. The result is that you get less than the total bandwidth available as well as dividing the available bandwidth between the devices (and not even a fair division!)

Overall, it may well work, depending on the number of devices and the simultaneous usage, but you won't know completely until you try. Even then, you may have odd problems occurring from time to time, which will be difficult to reproduce and therefore trace.

If you can, I would use Cat5 anywhere you can and only use the powerline in places where it really is impossible to run more cables in.

The lesson to any future builders is, ALWAYS leave conduit in the walls to allow cabling to be run at a later date without needing walls and floors to be ripped open!

Just my 10 Eurocents 

Well I certainly would not suggest choosing PowerLine in preference to CAT5/6. However if you do not want to disturb your decor or you have a building where running new cables is problematic for other reasons then HomePlug 200Mb units or above are viable. I would not recommend running more than 3 MD's over 200Mb modules (1Gig units are probably good for about 5/6 MD's if you have clean mains rings) and only then if your mains wiring is very HomePlug 'friendly'. We use HomePlug 200Mb units in smaller retrofit installations in smaller homes & apartments. Our experience (and we have 'real world' experience) is that the biggest issue is the variable quality of mains cabling...some brand new properties are just a 'no go' and some are great...some old properties are marginal and some are good. So testing your mains cabling for good HomePlug throughput is really essential.

All the best


Andrew

[wierdbeard65]

Obviously I concede to Andrew's expert knowledge and experience with this, however my experiance with VoIP shows that the duplex issue, in particular, can cause problems.

If you are intending to use your MDs for telephony as well as entertainment media then you need to at least be aware of the potential problem(s).

Admitedly, I work with commercial VoIP systems where there can be many hundreds, if not thousands of calls in progress on the LAN at any given time, but then commercial LANs tend to much higher speced and more closely managed.

Anyhow, if these devices work for you, fantastic. But be prepared, should there be issues, to go down the painful route of re-wiring your house......

[totallymaxed]

Obviously I concede to Andrew's expert knowledge and experience with this, however my experiance with VoIP shows that the duplex issue, in particular, can cause problems.

If you are intending to use your MDs for telephony as well as entertainment media then you need to at least be aware of the potential problem(s).

Admitedly, I work with commercial VoIP systems where there can be many hundreds, if not thousands of calls in progress on the LAN at any given time, but then commercial LANs tend to much higher speced and more closely managed.

Anyhow, if these devices work for you, fantastic. But be prepared, should there be issues, to go down the painful route of re-wiring your house......

I don't think we are saying anything conflicting at all - we're both saying there can be issues with Homeplug/PowerLine and that you cannot expect ti to work perfectly in every property or scale linearly to any specific size. However it is a usefull technology if you keep those limitations in mind when deciding if deploying it is the right thing to do. Most of our customers are pretty heavy users of media and most have VOIP configured on their systems too - so both these can definitely be deployed alongside one another if you take into consideration the issues already discussed earlier in the thread.

All the best

Andrew

[joederp]

Is ethernet over coax an option for your situation? If you could link all rooms/zones together in this manner, you could make each room's components an individual zone for wireless to the end-devices.