homplug wireless range extender

danielf · 31-10-2007, 10:53

The wireless signal in my house is rather poor. I have my router and desktop in the study, and the laptop(s) in the lounge. The lappy regularly loses connection and even if it is connected, the speed is often insufficient to stream mp3s. So, I was thinking of connecting the lappy via homeplug. Then I stumbled upon the homeplug wireless range extender. Basically, it works as a standard homeplug, but the nifty bit is that the client (so to speak) has a wireless as well as ethernet port, thus combining the advantages of wired and wireless: Use the powerlines to get through the walls, and go wireless after that. Sounds great (if a bit pricey at £100 for the devolo 85Mb version; Netgear do a cheaper one, but that is 14 Mb wired and 54 MB wireless so effectively capped at 14 MB).

Before I order it, I just want to make sure of the following: Will I be able to connect multiple devices (wirelessly) to this plug? It says it works as an access point (which I think should be ok), and the diagram here suggests you can, but I'm thinking that the router will dish out one IP to the homeplug, and I'm not sure how multiple IP addresses would be handled by this plug.

Hope this makes sense. TIA

Mr_love_monkey · 31-10-2007, 11:08

Sorry don't know the answer, but you could try dropping devlo support an email from the website - I mailed them and got a response in a few hours

Aragorn · 31-10-2007, 11:51

The homeplug device is just a wireless access point, your router at the other end will hand out the IP addresses, so yes it will work fine.
Essentially, each device connecting to the access point will create a wireless connection and the AP will communicate with the Router via the homeplug protocol and ask for a new IP address, which will be passed back to the device.

danielf · 31-10-2007, 11:56

Cheers, looking good then

danielf · 07-11-2007, 17:33

Well, it arrived today, was a doddle to set up, and so far I have a solid 54Mbps wireless signal. I can even stream audio

Oh, and the that girl is even cuter on the box than she looks on the smallish photo on the web

I'm keeping that box