Linked by JoanneRodgers on Thu 15th May 2008 23:02 UTC
In a June 2003 Wired Magazine interview, Martha Stewart said, "Bill Gates' house, for example, is totally out of date now. He built it right before wireless happened. The big tunnels for all his wires - he doesn't need any of that stuff anymore." The article wasn't about networking, or even technology, but I was struck by that statement because it was echoed by several people when I was explaining that I was running many thousands of feet of cable in OSNews' "house of the future." "Is all that cable really necessary now that there's wireless everything?" people said. As much as I respect Martha Stewart's business and design acumen, neither she, nor those people who talked to me, know what they're talking about. When it comes to networking, there's no substitute for a wire, when a wire's available. -- This is the latest entry in our 2008 Article Contest. 
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RE: Powerline and the bus
by Soulbender on Fri 16th May 2008 08:03
in reply to "Powerline and the bus"
Member since:2005-08-18
RE[2]: Powerline and the bus
by Kokopelli on Fri 16th May 2008 11:38
in reply to "RE: Powerline and the bus"
Member since:2005-07-06
That's not how it works. You're only getting 1Gb between your computer and the port on to the switch, anything beyond that is shared.
Ethernet is a shared media, btw.
Ethernet is a shared media, btw.
Incorrect. A gigabit ethernet connection allows for 1Gb bidirectional. Assuming the switch used has a non-blocking design, which all but the cheapest ones do, a switch has a maximum throughput of 2 times the number of ports. So the maximum theoretical throughput on an 8 port 1Gbps switch is 16Gbps. Obviously the theoretical maximum will never be achieved but a a switch is rarely limited to 1Gbps per direction as you suggest. In the old days of hubs sure, but not modern switches.
RE[2]: Powerline and the bus
by jonsmirl on Fri 16th May 2008 13:56
in reply to "RE: Powerline and the bus"
Member since:2005-07-06
Kokopelli is correct. You get full Ethernet bandwidth between the pairs of devices. But you need to use a little common sense, if there is only one cable between two switches and you run five sessions through that single cable the bandwidth is obviously going to be shared. To fix this add more cables and alternate paths.
Old Ethernet with coax was a bus like 802.11N and powerline. With old Ethernet only one device could talk at a time. In bus networks there is no way to add alternate paths. With old Ethernet you used hubs instead of switches.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Powerline networking is the way to go for things like security cameras. Just hook them up anywhere there is A/C and you're done. Powerline is plenty fast enough for cameras.
A very important point that is being missed. Powerline and wireless are shared medium networks. Shared medium means there is only one 802.11N wireless channel available. Start using this single channel for HDTV and everything is going to suffer. Don't believe the eleven wireless channels, there are only three non-overlapping 802.11g channels; 11N stomps on all three. And your neighbors stomp on you too.
Modern Ethernet is switched. This makes a tremendous difference in bandwidth. Each pair of devices is getting a dedicated 1GB channel. Watching HDTV off from a media server is not going to impact your web surfing.
Trivia - powerline networking uses exactly the same modulation techniques as 802.11g/n.