As a temporary measure, while the new house is being built, we are living with the inlaws. Although this brings its share of pros and cons, one of the larger impacts has been internet and network connectivity. Between my day job and various hobbies, I utilize quite a bit of internet bandwidth, and our home network is rather robust. That has been a bit of an adjustment, since the inlaws don’t really need the internet much, and have limited wifi usage (and very little hardwire connectivity).
As a result, I have had to get a bit creative. The first challenge was upgrading the basic speed – an adjustment that required a shift in subscription service since the pre-existing service had no upgrade options. Indirectly, this helped both networks, since the house can now take advantage of 5G wifi networking, and the increased bandwidth covers the much larger number of networked devices.
Separately, I needed a way to hard-wire a couple of specific locations, both due to pure bandwidth requirements (I am on video conferences all day) and due to wifi range limitations. Initially, I had intended to run ethernet cabling. That however is rather challenging in an old house, and honestly has minimal benefit once this temporary location is completed – the inlaws have no need for the increased access.
The solution is one that I had considered in the past, but always opted against – mainly due to concerns over performance and stability – networking over the existing power lines. These devices are rather inexpensive, and utilize the existing house power lines for transmission of the network – so ideally any place with a power plug can be an ethernet port. The reality is rarely as good as the theory though, so I have never really experimented with the option.
Fortunately, I can say my initial testing has been very successful. Utilizing a set of TP-Link branded Powerline AV600 and AV1000 devices, I have managed to rather easily connect several locations, bypassing the spotty wifi. The network speeds are not top of the line, but they are more than sufficient both for the internet speed and for computer to computer traffic. Plus, when we are done here and ready to move into the house, it is easy to disassemble and remove.
