Devolo dLAN Wireless Extender

Best Price:
One of the principal problems with Wi-Fi networks is coverage. If your house is big or has solid walls and floors, your Wi-Fi signal may struggle to reach rooms more than a wall or two away from your router. One alternative, if you don’t want to have unsightly Ethernet cables running all over your house, is to use network adapters that use your existing electrical wiring to transmit data. However, because manufacturers recommend that the network adapters should be plugged directly into the mains power (rather than an extension cable), you should check that you have enough available wall sockets.

Features:
This pack from Devolo offers the best of all worlds. It comes with two adapters for your power sockets – one 85Mbps HomePlug-compatible unit for connecting your existing router to the mains, and a Wi-Fi unit that will pick up this mains connection and create a Wi-Fi hotspot, compatible with both 802.11b and 802.11g standards, to be located in another room. The bundle comes with a generous 3-metre Ethernet cable for connecting the first plug to your router, so you should be able to run it to a free power socket away from the mass of extension cables that probably sit under your PC. The Wi-Fi adapter also has an Ethernet socket so you can wire a compatible device into it, if you wish.

Performance:
We tested the kit in a domestic setting with the main wireless router located in a room on the first floor. Connecting wirelessly to the router in the usual manner from a ground-floor room directly below the router, our wireless adapter was indicating an average signal strength of around 50 per cent, suggesting maximum network speeds of around 48Mbps. Moving into a ground floor room at the other end of the house it dropped to 40 per cent with a maximum speed of around 36Mbps.

Plugging in all the adapters and connecting to the new ‘electrically wired’ wireless network produced a vastly improved signal averaging around 85 per cent and the full Wi-Fi whack of 54Mbps. The reason for the signal not achieving maximum strength was probably because our only available socket was hidden behind a sofa. Even so, the results speak for themselves.

Ease of Use:
One of the nice things about this system is the ease with which you can set up and use it – always refreshing when you’re working with Wi-Fi. We plugged the devices in and found the Wi-Fi network immediately, as it wasn’t secured. Although it’s possible that some people might leave it that way, making themselves vulnerable to intrusion, sensible users will go on to install the relatively simple software and set up WEP or WPA security through a straightforward browser-based interface. Other diagnostic and utility software is also included on the CD, as is a comprehensive manual – just in case the diagrammatical quick-start guide isn’t quite enough.

Value for money:
At £140 this is an expensive kit, especially if you’ve already committed to Wi-Fi in a big way. However, it does bring the advantages of both Wi-Fi and powerline networking into your home, so you have a choice over which option you want to extend the next time you add a device to your network. Even if your only other option is to wire up or convert everything to a different networking system, it could still save you money.