DES<\/a>\u00a0encryption to secure its data transmissions, and each unit comes with a unique 16-character alphabetic password (found on the underside of the unit) that must be entered in order to enable encryption on the unit. Encryption is set up simply by using PowerPacket to create a private group of HomePlug devices with a common network group name. The private group is then made invisible by any HomePlug adapter that’s not a member of the group.<\/p>\nPerformance<\/b>
\nTo gauge the performance of the SMCHT-ETH we used a pair of adapters and connected each directly to a Windows XP PC (a desktop and a notebook). We then moved the notebook from room to room and in each used Ixia’s Qcheck utility to measure the throughput between the two systems.<\/p>\n
Although we did not anticipate throughput remotely approaching the quoted 85 Mbps figure and we did expect that throughput would vary somewhat between different AC outlets, we were surprised by how low the test scores were overall. In fact, in most cases they were only marginally better than the 4-6 Mbps you’d typically get from an older 14 Mbps HomePlug device.<\/p>\n
For example, Qcheck reported throughput of between 11 and 12 Mbps between a home office and a kitchen about 50 feet away. In the adjacent dining room, which was physically closer to the office, throughput dropped essentially in half, to between 5 and 7 Mbps. On the other hand, moving even further away from the office into a back bedroom improved throughput somewhat, to between 8 and 9 Mbps. Connecting both SMCHT-ETH units to the same wall outlet yielded the best performance \u2014 between 24 and 26 Mbps. Even in this essentially useless scenario the throughput was only about as much as you would see from conventional 802.11g hardware.<\/p>\n
The Bottom Line<\/b>
\nThe performance of the SMCHT-ETH was indeed disappointing. Although HomePlug adapters are known to be sensitive to the age of a home (or more to the point, of its electrical wiring), it’s worth noting that these tests were conducted in a relatively small and nearly new home (approximately 1,600 square feet and built in 2002). We didn’t have the opportunity to compare the SMCHT-ETH’s performance to that of any other vendor’s HomePlug products, but given that all such devices use a common third-party chipset (from Intellon), it’s a reasonable bet that they would have performed as well (or in this case, as poorly) as those from SMC.<\/p>\n
As long as performance is not your paramount concern, the SMCTH-ETH can is still be useful for networking device (especially a game system). That said, given the modest performance it’s hard to justify paying about $180 (the price of two adapters) to do so. On the one hand, that price is about the same price as SMC’s prior-generation HomePlug devices, and the new generation is unquestionably faster than the old. On the other hand, SMC products based on the earlier spec are still available and are now being sold at a discount (around $50-$60) and on a price\/performance basis they’re arguably now a much better buy than the newer products.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Price<\/b>: $89.99 (MSRP)<\/p>\n
Pros<\/b>: easy setup<\/p>\n
Cons<\/b>: disappointing performance; expensive<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Joe Moran is a regular contributor to PracticallyNetworked.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HomePlug network adapters \u2014 which extend a home network by using regular AC power lines to transmit data \u2014 can be a good choice for networking a far-flung computer or other device when going wireless is not an option (perhaps due to interference or excessive distance). With performance rated at 14 Mbps (and real-world throughput of roughly half that) it’s more than adequate for sharing an Internet connection or basic browsing and e-mail, but much less appropriate for bandwidth-intensive tasks like streaming media or moving large video or audio files around the home. SMC’s new $89.95 EZ Connect 85 Mbps <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}