News

WiFi coming out of the mains? Yes!

These days, you can't get a simple wireless access point to pump your WiFi signal into a remote room (a cellar, or a shed). But you don't need one: you can use the mains cable, and a Billion BiPac Homeplug solution. And bingo! you've got 802.11n - the fastest WiFi available.

The good news is that you get both power and Internet on the same cable, which will almost certainly be there already. Even the darkest stone cellars have power.

And you might even like to consider using something like the BiPac 2703N if you have an older Internet connection, which includes only the slower 11b and 11g versions of WiFi, to upgrade your network, getting faster links and better security. Especially if you wish BT had installed the original router in a different room.

Why do it with wireless instead of Ethernet?

Normal Homehub extensions to Ethernet networking are excellent; plug one end into your home router, and the other into the mains, and then every mains socket in the house will give you an Ethernet cable, right?

Right! - but it won't be WiFi. And an awful lot of today's gadgets don't have anything else. Where's the Ethernet cable on your iPhone? your iPod? the games console? your camera? So substitute the new BiPac 2073N for a standard http://www.billion.uk.com/product/powerline/2071.htm
2071 device, and be mobile again.

What this is not, is an office network. If you already have Wireless N speed WiFi, you'll have a network identity, or SSID. Ideally, you'd like this one to have the same ID, so that the new work signs you out of the home access point, and into the new one. We'll be trying this out. It may work, but it might be simple.

Price is £72.79 or £63.29 ex VAT from someone like http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Search/SearchResults.asp?QSearch=2073n - which sounds cheap for a Wireless N network. And it would be, but sadly, you also have to have the other end of the link. You can't get Internet out of the far end, unless you have something like a Billion BiPAC 2072  - the HomePlug AV 200 Ethernet Bridge - to feed it into the mains in the first place.

That costs £59.74 / £51.95 ex VAT

Billion told us that it intends to have a dual-unit starter pack come some time in the New Year, with both ends of the link. An executive also told us that it was OK to connect to other standard Homeplug AV 200 devices, but warned: "Some AV 200 devices have little tweaks, to go faster, and may not be compatible."

We understand that D-Link has one such; we'll try to get that tested with this when we get the chance in a couple of weeks.

Of course, with Wireless N, you get better security than on old devices; WEP, WPA, WPA2 wireless encryption can be set up. You do that by connecting to the device from a browser.