G, G+N, N, and other possibilities

[miamicanes]

I'm still mulling over the best way to get rock-solid ethernet connectivity between my computer room (upstairs, front of house) and laundry room (downstairs, rear of house, with composite steel-pan + concrete suspended slab in between). Here are the options I've come up with so far:

* HomePlug AV. Appealing in theory, but everything I've read says its performance is grossly exaggerated, and that I'd be lucky to sustain 40-50mbit/sec under even the most flawlessly-ideal artificial conditions (that's what one reviewer got by plugging both modules into the same 3-way outlet adapter as an experiment), with ~20-25mbit/sec from all but the worst 2 or 3 outlets in the house (apparently, there's ALWAYS one or two outlets that just don't play nicely, though nobody has ever really figured out why). HomePlug 1.0 apparently has an abyssmal ~1.0mbit/sec real-world throughput, and its "85mbit/sec" extension apparently gets 5-6mbit/sec from the best 90% of the outlets, and might see 10-12mbit from the best 25% on a good day.

* 802.11G, via Linksys WRT54G and WAP54G (maybe WET200) and aftermarket +6db or better antennas

* 802.11G, with Linksys WRT54G router + aftermarket antenna, and 802.11N(draft) wireless-to-wired bridge/access point (stock antennas), on the theory that it wouldn't cost much more than the WET200, and might be able to use its diversity-tuning capabilities to do a better job with 'G'. On the other hand, it might do a totally crap job with 'G', the way modern radios do with AM (on the theory that nobody really cares, so it's the first thing that gets value-engineered away).

* 802.11N (draft) router AND wireless bridge, with ONE aftermarket antenna on the router (if I have to buy a 'N router AND bridge, I'm going to be bleeding pretty badly, and blowing another $100-200 on antennas would just be out of the question).

I suspect I'm not the first person who's faced this dilemma (best of breed G, vs potentially-flaky N or powerline networking), and I'd love to get others' opinions

 

[electron]

Forget about HomePlug, it is the biggest disappointment ever. I managed to get my hands on the latest stuff from Dlink (supposedly really fast), but most of my outlets didn't work, and the few that did, were extremely slow.

I think 2 wireless routers would be your best bet. I don't see the concrete slab or steel pan being too much of a problem (based on my experience with commercial buildings). Even G would do the job (especiall with DD-WRT), but I think I would go with N. I don't think you would need to ugprade your antennas, and I have yet to encounter a flaky N setup, just get a router which has good reviews. Thew new N1 stuff is supposedly the same speed, but has an increased range, so maybe that's an option, but you will pay a premium.

Whatever you do, get it from a store with a good return policy, and it shouldn't be too big of a deal/gamble.

 

[KenM]

* 802.11G, with Linksys WRT54G router + aftermarket antenna, and 802.11N(draft) wireless-to-wired bridge/access point (stock antennas), on the theory that it wouldn't cost much more than the WET200, and might be able to use its diversity-tuning capabilities to do a better job with 'G'. On the other hand, it might do a totally crap job with 'G', the way modern radios do with AM (on the theory that nobody really cares, so it's the first thing that gets value-engineered away).

I recently replaced my WRT54G with a WRT350N. The idea was that the added memory and newer firmware would make my wireless-G IP cameras more reliable (no real difference with the cameras, different story). The WRT350N was slightly worse on G until I disabled the N mode in the set up menu. Then the performance (range/speed) was about the same as my old WRT54G. Also, the 350N likes to hang up if I have too many wired/wireless connections open at one time. That could be a setup item, but I have not discovered a fix yet other than rebooting the router (I setup Homeseer2 to periodically do a ping and reboot it if necessary).

I am keeping the new router in service because I like the wired gigabyte switch and the shared (ftp) network USB drive hosting it has. I would not, however, recommend it as an improvement to a WRT54G on a G network.

Ken

 

[miamicanes]

Well, for what it's worth, I decided to give the Linksys PLE200 PowerLine AV ethernet adapters a try. I haven't had time to physically benchmark them yet, but according to the setup utility, I'm allegedly getting 81mbps from one, and 101mbps from the other (I'm not quite sure exactly how they can meaningfully differ given that they only talk to each other...).

The main reason? I was just about set to buy a WAP54G, then I found out that for some inane reason, you need TWO of them to achieve a pair of ethernet switches connected wirelessly. So I'd need two WAP54Gs, at least two, if not four antennas, AND I'd still need the WRT54G. While there's a certain cool appeal to finally having THREE classic Linksys boxen to stack, the two WAP54Gs alone would have set me back about $120, even at Tiger Direct outlet store prices. So I said 'screw it' and decided to give the Powerline AV a try. After reading lots of reviews, I came to the following conclusions:

* When they work, their real-world performance is no worse than 802.11g... and usually a lot better.

* For most people, they work, and work fairly well. For a relatively small group of unfortunate people, they fail miserably.

I reserve the right to change my opinion completely after a few days of use, but so far it looks like I might be one of the lucky people for whom it works at least as well as 802.11g