I've Had It With Wireless

So, once again my desktop's wireless adapter isn't working. The internet works when plugged in via Cat 5e, but via WiFi I keep seeing the connection lost screen. This happened a few weeks ago, and I've gone through three USB adapters in less than three years. Trust me, it's getting more than a little annoying.

So, I head over to Microcenter, not wanting to wait to ship anything. I park myself in the networking department, committed to finding an answer. The Powerline gear they had was expensive, with a Netgear model at $159 for two adapters, and another one that looked kind of old for $99 that only did 14 Mbps. While I was deciding on which direction to go in, the associate for the area comes by. I figure I've got nothing to lose, so I ask for a consult. I describe the setup (cable modem, Belkin pre-N router, pile of USB keys for router one floor away), and he's as puzzled as I am why these things are wearing out so quickly.

He asks me if the network is encrypted, and I tell him that I run WPA, and that besides, I turn everything off when I'm not using it for the ultimate in security. Now, he's really scratching his head. His opinion of Powerline gear is not too high, and he encourages me to just buy another wireless USB adapter as my experience is less than typical.

All right, I decide to give it one last try. Both Netgear and Lnksys G models are on sale for $39.99. He says "Linksys is made by Cisco, and they're the ones who build the whole internet. You can't go wrong with them." Apparently, I can, but I had known that little factoid already, but was curious if it translated to their consumer products. I left the store with this, rationalizing that hopefully in 2009 there will be new standards for WiFi N networking, and Powerline, and if I get another 10 months out of this, then it will be clearer to buy into a new standard with all new gear for a new and improved network. So much for that plan.

I got home, and loaded up the Linksys, following the instructions. I entered my WPA key, and was instantly impressed with the included software that had some little useful tidbits, with things like the uptime, and the maximum thoroughput that I haven't encountered on previous gear. However, we have a new record, as within 2 minutes, the key was completely dead, and wouldn't connect to my network again. Put it in the return pile, and I got that sinking feeling that WiFi just isn't my cup of tea anymore for connecting my desktop.

Annoyed, I thought through the issues. No 2.4GHz even in the house. No microwave on. Theoretically, how do I know it's not the router? Well, I brought the notebook and with its internal wireless it connected fine, until that crashed, but that's another story. However, the old Buffalo key worked last night once again, so I think it's an intermittent problem.

I'm at a loss to know what to do at this point. I'm even thinking about getting an electrician to come and pull some Cat 5e which would solve the problem, but the budget isn't going to support that, and it's not my forte (something about not wanting to destroy the whole house to solve one problem comes to mind).

I decided to head on over to Amazon and get an idea of what the more current Powerline networking gear looks like and costs. I'm definitely out of my element here, and while I know plenty about WiFi, Powerline is a bit of a mystery, and I have no direct experience with it. Here's the standards:

-HomePlug 1.0 — Released June 2001 — Specification for connecting devices via power lines in the home. Theoretical speed of 14 Mbit/s.
-HomePlug 1.0 Turbo — Faster, unofficial specification for connecting devices via power lines in the home. Theoretical speed of 85 Mbit/s.
-HomePlug AV — Released December 2005 — Designed for transmitting HDTV and VoIP around the home. Theoretical PHY datarate of up to 189 Mbit/s.

Turns out that the one at Microcenter for $99 was only the 1.0 spec which is kinda slow. I was glad I hadn't jumped without some research. Over on Amazon, I found this from Actiontec, and the price was more in accordance with the 1.0 Turbo spec. I'm ready to order it, but then I spot its big brother. All right, lets get serious, and stop playing around with the toys. This looks pretty good, and it supports the faster speeds which should easily outdo my cable modem's 15/2 connection with bandwidth to spare. It also is encrypted (like anyone is gonna break into this anyway), and there are users that state that it has performed across wires on separate circuit breakers (our own Bill clued me in to that issue, see here).

At any rate, I ordered the faster one from Amazon. Will this be any better than WiFi? I have no idea, but it would be hard for it to be worse at this point. Stay tuned for the review.

Jonas

If you're as unsatisfied with your WiFi as I am, these are the two affordable alternatives that I encountered, and I bought the faster one.