WD debuts four-port powerline boxes
Mains networking to the max
Are your one-port powerline Ethernet adaptors proving insufficient for hooking up all the gadgets you want to connect to your network? Western Digital has the answer.
It's moving into the powerline market with Livewire, a four-port adaptor that uses the HomePlug AV standard to deliver raw data rates of up to 200Mb/s.
Real-world speeds will be rather less than that, but sufficient for streaming two or three 1080p HD movies around the network. And with so many home electronics kit now networkable and all using Ethernet rather than wireless - Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, games consoles, network storage, internet radios, TVs and more - there'll be plenty of packets flying about.
WD's offerings come in packs of two for the very reasonable £90. Both will, of course, be able to talk to a one-port HomePlug AV powerline adaptor connected directly to your router if you need all eight ports on the WD boxes elsewhere. ®
Powerline and Networking Reviews
Belkin Powerline HD Gigabit mains Ethernet adaptor
Devolo dLan AVplus
Elgato Netstream DTT networkable TV tuner
Belkin Home Base
COMMENTS
EMC
Has anyone run a radio next to the thing to see how much crud it outs out?
Reviewed by anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3860/powerline-networking-with-the-western-digital-livewire
doesn't seem all that special
Real or fake?
The pictures do not look real, they are fakes. Is the CE mark saying that it complies will all regulations, INCLUDING EMC also fake?
Clutter
A switch is going to need a power supply too; and often they're cheap plug-top efforts, which may spew out crap that affects the powerline network.
If you're using something like this to bring the network into the living room, then you may well have rather more aethetic considerations (and a partner to nag about the mess) than you would in the study.
