IPTV over another HomePlug ID

[mrasker]

Hi,

I have 3 pcs of TPL-402E HomePlugs from TrendNet (http://www.trendnet.com/langen/products/proddetail.asp?prod=110_TPL-402E&cat=178 but of course with the European plug) and they are working fine for extending our home network and for getting Internet access all over the house (except for remote controlling my rPi running OpenELEC, but that is a topic for another forum and/or thread).

Now we have been blessed with a fiber connection (We'll get a 1Gb/250Mb internet connection with no caps or limitations) and we thinking of also getting the IPTV option. The problem is that the Media Converter is at one end of the house in the garage and the TV is literally at the opposite end of the house.

I've been told that we need to have a dedicated Ethernet cable from the Media Converter to the TV-box. Sadly the distance for setting up a dedicated Ethernet cable for this is rather large, roughly 50-60 meters not considering all the walls and angels. It will not be much better even if we go for the option of setting it up on the outside of the house.

What I was thinking is that maybe I can use a secondary network ID/name of a new pair of HomePlug/PowerLAN adapters to create a virtual dedicated Ethernet cable (ref: "Overlapping Powerline Networks").

So my first question is: Have anybody successfully done this? If you have, what are your experience with it? Please tell me everything.


Also, since I will not be using the same network ID as the first HomePlug-network I see no need to get two more TPL-402E, I was actually leaning more towards choosing some other vendor since this might even better separate the "DATA"-traffic and the "IPTV"-traffic.

I was thinking of the Zyxel PLA-5215 or the Zyxel PLA-4215 based on what I have learnt from this excellent chart: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/powerline-charts/view and by using Google.

So, my second question is: Have anybody any input on using the same or different vendor and speed? Good/Bad/Makes no difference?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[thiggins]

You can link pairs of adapters so that they pass data privately between them. You do this by using the pairing button and process all adapters support. Sometimes vendors supply a utility you can use to assign specific network names.

BUT all powerline adapters share the same bandwidth. So you don't gain any performance by creating different pairs.

You can in general mix adapters from different vendors. But I would make all adapters the same type/class, i.e. AV 200 Mbps, AV 500 Mbps, AV2 500 Mbps, etc. Mixing 200 and 500 Mbps types will basically result in everything dropping to the 200 Mbps technology speeds (about 40 Mbps real throughput maximum) when the 200 Mbps adapters are active.

 

[mrasker]

BUT all powerline adapters share the same bandwidth. So you don't gain any performance by creating different pairs.

You can in general mix adapters from different vendors. But I would make all adapters the same type/class, i.e. AV 200 Mbps, AV 500 Mbps, AV2 500 Mbps, etc. Mixing 200 and 500 Mbps types will basically result in everything dropping to the 200 Mbps technology speeds (about 40 Mbps real throughput maximum) when the 200 Mbps adapters are active.

Thanks, that is very useful information.

I have another option and that is sell my 3 old TrendNet adapters and buy 5 new adapters of the same make and model and then create two networks with different names. That would render the vendor and speed problem mute and I'm assuming all newer adapters have support for both AV and AV2. At least the Zyxel adapter I have in mind do: http://www.zyxel.com/se/sv/products_services/pla5215.shtml?t=p&tabOrder=1


I'll Google this, but do you know if I can "allocate" bandwidth to one "network name" or in some other way prioritize one network over the other in a HomePlus network?

I've been told that IPTV requires a dedicated 10Mbps and HD IPTV requires a dedicated 100Mbps, but I'm guessing it is more like 1-3Mbps vs 40-60Mbps (based on what I can see when I stream movies), so if I could make sure the TV network always get what it needs I think I'm ready to order IPTV.

 

[thiggins]

Don't assume anything about networking products! But yes, the ZyXEL adapters you linked support HomePlug AV2 SISO.

Some adapters expose QoS controls in a supplied utility. But the controls are complex and I don't know how well they work.

Good luck and let us know how you make out.