Extend your LAN connection through power lines

Ever dreamed of having an Ethernet port in every room? Or having a wireless connection throughout the house without the messy Ethernet cables running through the concealing pipes or through the walls? Well, you can do just that with Ethernet power-line adapters. You can extend your LAN connection through the already present power lines in your home, office, etc.

The technology is called power line communication (PLC). It is a standard that carries data on a conductor which is simultaneously used for electric power transmission. To use your power lines to extend your LAN connection, you need to purchase power line adapters and plug them in to a power socket. There will be a LAN port on the adapters, you need to connect a LAN cable between this port and a port of your main internet router. Plug another adapter in a different power socket where you would like to use the LAN connection. Connect a LAN cable between this adapter and your PC/Laptop. Your device will now be able to connect to the main router and thus to the internet through the power lines.

We will be covering one such power line adapter in brief - TP-LINK AV200+ TL-PA251

Features:

• Integrated power socket which allows access to power for other devices.
• Data transfer rate of up to 200 Mbps
• Mains filter for better performance 
• Range of up to 300 meters through the electrical wires
• Plug and play, no configuration needed

Extending Wi-Fi network through power lines:

In order to extend your Wi-Fi connection over power lines, you need a minimum of two power line adapters. One of the will be connected to your main router and the other to another Wi-Fi router in a different room where you want to deploy the wireless connection. You need to keep the same wireless network parameters such as SSID name, security type and security key in both the routers so that the network deployed by two routers behaves as one big network. Roaming will be automatically enabled.

Posted in: Technology, Tips & Tricks