Belkin Powerline AV+ Starter Kit
It’s pretty rare you come across a product that just works. You set it up, plug it in, and forget about it because you never have to fuss with it. The Belkin Powerline network adapters are just such a product, at least so far.
Having recently moved back to the United States at the very beginning of the year, I decided to rent for a year before committing to buying a home. The problem is, very few homes for rent are pre-wired for ethernet. The problem is the internet router is in the basement but my network printer and linux server are two stories away, making it impractical to run ethernet cable, especially in a home I know I won’t be living in permanently, thus one solution without using wireless bridges that are very difficult to find and are expensive anyway, are powerline network converters that use your home’s existing electrical wiring. They are available from a few manufacturers but I decided on the Belkin as they were reasonably priced at the time (actually I don’t think the price has changed much) at around $180 for one transmitter and one receiver with a claimed 200 Mbit speed, which is all I really needed.
Since my Verizon router is only 100Mbit and I don’t have a gigabit router to test with, I can’t say with any certainty that I can get anywhere close to 200Mbit even in bursts, but I can say that I regularly get between 70Mbit and 100Mbit rates between the studio PC that is very near the router and transmitter and the linux server upstairs that I regularly copy huge audio files up to from the studio to work on upstairs. While that’s not stellar and gigabit would certainly be nice, I am regularly maxing out the current network and the powerline converters aren’t causing an obvious bottleneck.
They have the capability to encrypt the traffic between the transmitter and receiver but I haven’t enabled it. If somebody wants to spend that much effort to sniff my network with a powerline receiver, I guess they deserve whatever they can get. Nothing personal is being transmitted across the network that isn’t already encrypted anyway. I suppose it’s a nice feature if you’re that worried about it or you have nosy neighbors that may be using the same product, but I didn’t bother.
The transmitter is plugged into a short six-foot CAT-5E ethernet cable directly to one of the Verizon FiOS router ports and plugged into the same power outlet the router is plugged into. The studio PC also connects directly to one of the router ports via about 30 feet of CAT-5E ethernet cable. The receiver is plugged into the bedroom on the second floor (the router is in the basement) in one of the rooms being used as an office. The receiver has three ports, all three of which are being used, two with permanent always on connections; one is a linux server mainly a file server, the other a network laser printer. The third is an ethernet connection for my laptop when I’m using it in the office. I’ve never had any network problems with either the server or the printer ever. I may have lucked out and rented a house with decent wiring so that physical electrical connection is never an issue.
The only networking problems I’ve ever had are related to the FiOS router that once a month or so decides to lose its brains and needs to be power-cycled. I may or may not continue to use these little gems when we move into our own home but it is reassuring to know I can get wired connectivity anywhere in a home where it’s either impractical to run wiring or just not necessary, like the kids’ rooms. If your kids have to have gigabit ethernet they’re probably doing something they’re not supposed to 
I must say gigabit ethernet is addictive. My last job had gigabit throughout the building and being able to transfer enormous files in seconds is certainly a luxury. Eventually I’d like to wire my home at that speed but it’s a nice option to be able to get sustained 100 Mbit speeds anywhere in your home, assuming the wiring is reliable. Given that I regularly do get close to 100 Mbit speeds, I tend to believe the stated 200 Mbit burst speeds claimed by Belkin. I doubt they can sustain that speed but until I have a gigabit router and network to test them with I’ll just have to make that assumption based on how well they’ve worked so far.
Conclusion? I highly recommend this product for anyone who needs a wired network connection and running standard ethernet cable isn’t an option. They have been running non-stop for about nine months now with zero problems and they are used heavily about three days out of the week. Never a problem. I like that. You just forget they’re there after a while because they always work. I like that.
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