Does exactly what it says on the tin
Home mains networking has arrived and it is both reliable and affordable! For years I have been fiddling about with Ethernet cables and wireless, trying to network our home computers. Wireless signal strength has always been distinctly iffy, and last week the Ethernet cable that I laid across the hall, under the new carpet and a couple of very full bookcases, gave up the ghost - leaving us with a much-used desktop PC that had no Internet connectivity. "No sweat," I said. "I've been thinking of moving that PC to wireless anyway". So I ran down to Maplin and came back with a leading brand wireless PCI card, installed it, and got it working in about 30 minutes. Trouble was, the signal strength was so gutless - from a router two rooms and about 40 feet away - it couldn't get us on to the Internet at all! Back to square one. (Incidentally, while researching I discovered that metal and water stop wireless dead; brick, stone, and breeze blocks attenuate it by 90-95 percent; and even double...
EASY CONNECTIONS
This is a great product if, like me, you live in an old house with very thick walls which will defeat almost any wireless network. Works out of the box even with less than modern wiring and I have not experienced any drop-out or freezing so far. The only problem was that one plug failed after only a few hours use but the returns service at Amazon quickly sent a replacement and arranged to collect the faulty item - full marks to them.
Very simple to use but limited support for Mac OS X
I purchased the starter kit to improve the speed of my home network as I have a couple of Apple Macs in different rooms. Setting the network up was very simple indeed - I plugged the units into the mains sockets and they automatically recognised each other. I was also impressed by the network's speed which was about 40% faster that the previous connection over a 20 metre phone extension cable. Devolo also provide a utility that enables you to encrypt the network which was quick and easy to use.
However I was slightly disappointed in the lack of support for OS X users. Windows users are provided with a network utility and a way to upgrade the firmware on the devices - in contrast there's nothing available for Apple OS X users which is a pity given they market the product as OS X compatible.
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