Does anyone have experience of Netgear Rangemax products?
I was hoping to move my desktop into another room but that is beginning to seem unlikely.
I originally had a Netgear WG602 which is a plain vanilla wireless access point and in my desktop I have an on-board wireless chip with an external aerial and I also have a D-Link AirPlus XtremeG PCI wireless card. Both receivers give similar performance with the WG602.
That combination didn't give a good enough signal in the room that I want to use. My next step was to buy a Netgear WPN802 RangeMax wireless access point which is supposed to gve up to 10 times the range of a 'normal' WAP. A trial showed that it gave a signal which was slightly less good than the WG602 in conjuction with either of the two receivers.
Someone suggested that I should use a RangeMax card to get the best effect so I bought a WPN311 RangeMax PCI card. That, together with the WPN802 RangeMax WAP gave results that were no different from the original setup.
Surely Netgear can't get away with stating that that combination will give up to 10 times 'normal' if it does not improve performance at all?
Am I doing something wrong (apart from buying Netgear)?
Barry Samuels wrote:
Does anyone have experience of Netgear Rangemax products?
I was hoping to move my desktop into another room but that is beginning to seem unlikely.
I originally had a Netgear WG602 which is a plain vanilla wireless access point and in my desktop I have an on-board wireless chip with an external aerial and I also have a D-Link AirPlus XtremeG PCI wireless card. Both receivers give similar performance with the WG602.
That combination didn't give a good enough signal in the room that I want to use. My next step was to buy a Netgear WPN802 RangeMax wireless access point which is supposed to gve up to 10 times the range of a 'normal' WAP. A trial showed that it gave a signal which was slightly less good than the WG602 in conjuction with either of the two receivers.
Someone suggested that I should use a RangeMax card to get the best effect so I bought a WPN311 RangeMax PCI card. That, together with the WPN802 RangeMax WAP gave results that were no different from the original setup.
Surely Netgear can't get away with stating that that combination will give up to 10 times 'normal' if it does not improve performance at all?
Am I doing something wrong (apart from buying Netgear)?
This reply is not intended to be cynical but... [your email is been there done that]! i thought i'd give it a reply.
I decided not to even bother with wireless and used a Netgear XE102 Powerline setup for where i live. For the hardship of 5 secs to fit i wonder why it is not more popular. Thick house walls and an annexe quite a distance away i thought not even worth trying. Last summer my brother had no end of problems and none of it due to his equipment - now all ok but was it worth the grief?
Why are folk generally derogatory towards Netgear and why not save yourself the grief and expense of wireless and use powerline? The unit costs the same as a wireless card from ebuyer. I've had 7 months of faultless use so far.
james
On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 10:28:30AM +0000, James Freer wrote:
Why are folk generally derogatory towards Netgear and why not save yourself the grief and expense of wireless and use powerline? The unit costs the same as a wireless card from ebuyer. I've had 7 months of faultless use so far.
I'd like to know where you can buy powerline adaptors for the same price as wireless cards? I'd quite like some to get all the kit I have that doesn't move around onto something faster.
Also, what kind of performance do people see with this powerline gear as in latency and speed? I've read reports of it being about as slow as wireless.
Also there are 2 reasons that it is not as popular as wireless, first off some people have problems with powerline not working for them so they are in the same boat as wireless. Also powerline doesn't help me with my laptop which I move around the house, and most people have a wireless network as most laptops have wireless adaptors built in, but i'm not aware of anyone offering powerline stuff built into machines (although, if you could buy psu's and laptop adaptors that had it built in that'd be neat).
Adam
Adam Bower wrote:
I'd like to know where you can buy powerline adaptors for the same price as wireless cards? I'd quite like some to get all the kit I have that doesn't move around onto something faster.
It depends what you pay for the wireless kit, I guess. The prices are comparable in my experience. The Solwise stuff is amongst the cheapest (and as I mentioned elsewhere gets above average ratings). As a reseller I'd best not suggest any vendors other than www.solwise.co.uk themselves, but you can usually get them slightly cheaper elsewhere.
Also, what kind of performance do people see with this powerline gear as in latency and speed? I've read reports of it being about as slow as wireless.
A perfect wireless network will beat a homeplug network with noise issues, but in our experience with both the performance of 11Mbps homeplug has been broadly similar to 54MBps wireless, and 85MBps exceeding it. Homeplug numbers are optimistic best cases (the same as wireless) but most users get much closer to best case with homeplug than wireless. All anecdotal, of-course.
Also there are 2 reasons that it is not as popular as wireless, first off some people have problems with powerline not working for them so they are in the same boat as wireless.
Most people (in our experience) come to homeplug because wireless failed them; it's rare for someone to start with homeplug. That makes it hard to compare properly.
Also powerline doesn't help me with my laptop which I move around the house, and most people have a wireless network as most laptops have wireless adaptors built in, but i'm not aware of anyone offering powerline stuff built into machines (although, if you could buy psu's and laptop adaptors that had it built in that'd be neat).
It would be good if the technology could be built into PSUs etc, but I don't know anyone doing it. It would be nice if the homeplugs at least had a mains passthrough so that they didn't take up a socket on their own, but again I don't know of any that do. And they tend to be a bit on the large side in many cases, so might prevent an adjacent socket being used (newer units are smaller though).
Regarding wireless, there are homeplug wireless devices that combine the two; you put your network onto the mains at (say) the ADSL router, then plug the wireless homeplug adapter into the mains somewhere convenient based on where wireless networking will be used. I set this up for my Dad for his birthday and it works well, whereas a wireless signal from the router down to the kitchen where he sits with the laptop was not workable (he plugs the wireless homeplug into a socket in the kitchen).
Homeplugs aren't the total panacea they're sometimes claimed to be, but we find that they come closer than wireless does for most people. And they're MUCH more secure for most on-technical users.
On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 12:03:56PM +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
It depends what you pay for the wireless kit, I guess. The prices are comparable in my experience. The Solwise stuff is amongst the cheapest (and as I mentioned elsewhere gets above average ratings). As a reseller I'd best not suggest any vendors other than www.solwise.co.uk themselves, but you can usually get them slightly cheaper elsewhere.
I don't like to pay more than a tenner for a wireless card, cheapest solwise do is a set for £50.16 so they aren't cheap but then if they give lots more bandwidth and better reliability that is cheap. I guess that the trouble is that I'm happy with my wireless that works well 99% of the time and don't want to spend any money on something that might not be any better or could be worse.
Adam
Adam Bower wrote:
I guess that the trouble is that I'm happy with my wireless that works well 99% of the time and don't want to spend any money on something that might not be any better or could be worse.
Absolutely agree - if it isn't broken don't mess around fixing it!
If you have a reliable (and secure!) connection using wireless, and the throughput is good (or just good enough) there's absolutely no good reason to change anything.
For a new install I would consider Homeplugs and wireless together on their merits against the purpose of the install. Where wireless doesn't work I'd seriously consider homeplugs. But where wireless is working stick with it unless/until that changes.
Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 10:28:30AM +0000, James Freer wrote:
Why are folk generally derogatory towards Netgear and why not save yourself the grief and expense of wireless and use powerline? The unit costs the same as a wireless card from ebuyer. I've had 7 months of faultless use so far.
I'd like to know where you can buy powerline adaptors for the same price as wireless cards? I'd quite like some to get all the kit I have that doesn't move around onto something faster.
Also, what kind of performance do people see with this powerline gear as in latency and speed? I've read reports of it being about as slow as wireless.
Also there are 2 reasons that it is not as popular as wireless, first off some people have problems with powerline not working for them so they are in the same boat as wireless. Also powerline doesn't help me with my laptop which I move around the house, and most people have a wireless network as most laptops have wireless adaptors built in, but i'm not aware of anyone offering powerline stuff built into machines (although, if you could buy psu's and laptop adaptors that had it built in that'd be neat).
Adam
Adam
I bought the Netgear XE102 which is £26ish each. PCworld charge about £50 each for them.
http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Wireless/subcat/Adapters---PC-Cards
cards go from £11-99 to £77 ish ok a rough mean is about £40.
The only problem someone can have with powerline is some fault with their power supply. Wireless is preferable because it's the 'yuppee' thing to have - if you want to spend the money. All you have to plug in is the plug and an internet cable - nothing to build into a machine. I'd like a laptop but i'd still use a powerline.
james
On 17/12/07 10:28:30, James Freer wrote:
This reply is not intended to be cynical but... [your email is been there done that]! i thought i'd give it a reply.
Why are folk generally derogatory towards Netgear and why not save yourself the grief and expense of wireless and use powerline? The unit costs the same as a wireless card from ebuyer. I've had 7 months of faultless use so far.
I'm not, generally, being derogatory about Netgear - just the RangeMax stuff. I have a Netgear DG834 router which has been working well for a number of years.
As far as using powerline units goes see my reply to Wayne.
Hello Barry,
I had a similar experience with the Rangemax stuff where it gave me an almost imperceptible improvement in range. Like you I think the advertising is misleading, as far as I can tell the rangemax products perform *slightly* better at the fringes of their operating range and due to the diversity antenna used in the AP they might perform better around a house which previously had dead spots due to think walls or whatever. But as to actually having a larger range I was unable to confirm.
What I would suggest is returning the rangemax kit as not as described and do the following.
Get a homeplug kit (the netgear stuff is pretty good and I have used the solwise stuff as well) Either get one with 1 Mains to Ethernet converter and one Mains to wireless converter and use the wireless converter to extend the range of your existing wireless in the dead spot.
Alternatively get two mains to Ethernet converters and plug your desktop into one of them and the other into your existing router.
Solwise also make an ADSL router that has a homeplug mains interface as well as the standard 4 ethernet ports. So then in conjunction with one of their wireless plug in units you have wireless broadband where the wireless bit can be easily situated at a different location to the phone line.
We have used this stuff to great effect when running cables would have been an inconvenience and/or expensive and it has proved to give a very reliable connection.
PS. Don't use them on filtered mains strips, plug directly into a wall socket if possible.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Hello Barry,
I had a similar experience with the Rangemax stuff where it gave me an almost imperceptible improvement in range. Like you I think the advertising is misleading, as far as I can tell the rangemax products perform *slightly* better at the fringes of their operating range and due to the diversity antenna used in the AP they might perform better around a house which previously had dead spots due to think walls or whatever. But as to actually having a larger range I was unable to confirm.
What I would suggest is returning the rangemax kit as not as described and do the following.
Get a homeplug kit (the netgear stuff is pretty good and I have used the solwise stuff as well) Either get one with 1 Mains to Ethernet converter and one Mains to wireless converter and use the wireless converter to extend the range of your existing wireless in the dead spot.
Alternatively get two mains to Ethernet converters and plug your desktop into one of them and the other into your existing router.
Solwise also make an ADSL router that has a homeplug mains interface as well as the standard 4 ethernet ports. So then in conjunction with one of their wireless plug in units you have wireless broadband where the wireless bit can be easily situated at a different location to the phone line.
We have used this stuff to great effect when running cables would have been an inconvenience and/or expensive and it has proved to give a very reliable connection.
PS. Don't use them on filtered mains strips, plug directly into a wall socket if possible.
How come my replies to emails seem to take longer on this list? I just said the same thing.
However what is a "filtered mains strip"? Is that the same as a Surge Protector? My machine is in a room where there is only one socket - i'm using a 4 socket surge protector and extension. From the electrical side i can't see how a surge protector can affect it. No problems with 7 months use.
james
James Freer wrote:
However what is a "filtered mains strip"? Is that the same as a Surge Protector? My machine is in a room where there is only one socket - i'm using a 4 socket surge protector and extension. From the electrical side i can't see how a surge protector can affect it. No problems with 7 months use.
We often find that homeplugs work fine through surge protectors, but not sufficiently often that we would say it works in general.
I don't have any technical details to back up that anecdotal advice, though.
On Mon, 2007-12-17 at 11:07 +0000, James Freer wrote:
However what is a "filtered mains strip"? Is that the same as a Surge Protector? My machine is in a room where there is only one socket - i'm using a 4 socket surge protector and extension. From the electrical side i can't see how a surge protector can affect it. No problems with 7 months use.
It would depend on the quality and effectiveness of the mains filter in question. Which can be different to a simple surge protector, remember a fuse is technically a "surge protector"..typically the cheaper ones may just have varying degrees of transient suppression and not actually "filter" the mains".
A textbook design of a proper mains filter might add say 1 millihenry of series inductance with perhaps 20 or so nF of parallel capacitance and perhaps 3-5 nF of capacitance tying the two rails down to ground, typically then the designer might add a voltage dependant resistor to try and catch the odd transient. Granted the capacitance and inductance are all pretty low figures but when the high frequency carrier is in a completely different range to the mains frequency and at a much lower amplitude it would be easy to see how these components wouldn't do the carrier signal any good.
Certainly I have known at least one type of filtered mains strip to have quite a serious negative impact on the homeplug kit. However as I say, if your strip is only a surge protector trying to catch transient spikes then it may have little to no effect.
Kind regards Wayne
On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 11:07:48AM +0000, James Freer wrote:
<snip class="wirelessRelevantStuff" />
How come my replies to emails seem to take longer on this list? I just said the same thing.
Posts go through gray listing, so until your mailserver is in the list it can take a small amount of time as the mail will be rejected the first time round, then it's down to your retry interval as to how quickly it'll get through.
Cheers,
Thanks Wayne
On 17/12/07 10:35:58, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Hello Barry,
I had a similar experience with the Rangemax stuff where it gave me an almost imperceptible improvement in range. Like you I think the advertising is misleading, as far as I can tell the rangemax products perform *slightly* better at the fringes of their operating range and due to the diversity antenna used in the AP they might perform better around a house which previously had dead spots due to think walls or whatever. But as to actually having a larger range I was unable to confirm.
At least that confirms my suspicions. In my limited experience it seems that the 'ordinary' WAP plus PCI card is slightly better that the RangeMax stuff.
What I would suggest is returning the rangemax kit as not as described and do the following.
Get a homeplug kit (the netgear stuff is pretty good and I have used the solwise stuff as well) Either get one with 1 Mains to Ethernet converter and one Mains to wireless converter and use the wireless converter to extend the range of your existing wireless in the dead spot.
I had thought of that but we have two phases in the house and signals won't cross from one phase to another. If that isn't enough we have electric heating which is centrally controlled by signals sent through the mains cables and I understand that either that would interfere with the ethernet signals or the ethernet signals may interfere with the heating signals.
It looks as though my only option will be to have a wireless relay but I won't know for sure whether that would work unless I buy another WAP and if it's not sufficient then I would have wasted even more money.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Get a homeplug kit (the netgear stuff is pretty good and I have used the solwise stuff as well)
We resell the Solwise plugs and I have to say that they are very good and we have very few problems with them. One of the PC rags recently had a review of several of the newer "AV" (200Mbps) homeplugs and found the Solwise ones to be the best and handling noise etc. Although to be honest they're all in a different league from wireless in that regard!
I'm also surprised they're not more commonly used. Sure wireless is convenient when you don't want any cables at all but it is really the wrong solution for anything where cables would be better but you just don't want the upheaval of installing new cabling. (The homeplugs sell on the apt "no new wires" strapline.)
A slight downside with the older Solwise plugs is that for Linux use you can't change the default encryption keys that are used to encrypt the network traffic, as the software to change that is Windows based (I haven't tried it under Wine). From a security perspective this is only an issue if you are concerned about someone buying a unit off the shelf and plugging it into your mains to get onto your network (again, these are in a completely different league from wireless when it comes to security[*]). However newer units allow the setting of the key using a push button on the unit so this ceases to be an issue. I don't have experience of the units from Devolo, Netgear, etc to know how they differ in that regard (although they all meet the same interconnectivity standards, I believe).
Of all the products we sell, Homeplugs are the only product I can think of that routinely generates "what a great product" and "it just worked" emails to our after sales people.
NB: Where wireless is appropriate there is a homeplug wireless adapter too, which means you can get your network onto the mains then plug the access point anywhere in the house where it gives the best results, rather than locating it near the ADSL router (for example) and hoping the signal is good enough to reach the laptop at the other end of the house. You can typically have up to 8-10 homeplug units on the same mains network (the specs allow for more but performance starts to suffer).
Re-reading the above it sounds a bit like an advert, for which I apologise - that wasn't intended. I just like these units and don't understand why they're not mainstream.
[*] Homeplug signals will not cross electrical phases, which in laymans terms means they won't go through your incoming supply out to your neighbour who will almost certainly be on a different phase of the 3-phase supply in your street. This means you can't use homeplugs to share your network with your neighbour (which is usually a good thing, of-course). You'll likely be on the same phase as the person three doors down the street, but the signal won't carry that far. But I'd recommend creating your own encryption key anyway, as a matter of good practise.
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Adam Bower -
Barry Samuels -
Brett Parker -
James Freer -
Mark Rogers -
Wayne Stallwood