What is HomePlug and Powerline

The HomePlug Powerline alliance is the combination of two organisations that were competing to produce a reference for networking over home power lines. Now a joint force there are several chip companies making reference chipsets to implement the technology.

One of the top runners is a company called Intellon. They have made references for PCI adapters, USB adapters, powerline to Ethernet bridges, and recently a powerline and Ethernet router.

Bestcom is a company in the Netherlands that is using the reference design to produce their own product (nothing new here, many keyboard manufacturers use generic chips). The two products on review are currently the only two powerline products that Bestcom are offering, however a router is on the way. The assumption is that they will use Intellon for the chipset also.

The review is concerned with the Intellon chipset which is providing all the functionality, but we shall also take a look at what Bestcom have managed to do with the chip as most reference designs are simply circuit schematics and a chip. This is why products with the same chipset can vary in performance as circuit design has many problems associated with it, EMC, cost, power requirements etc.

A couple of examples of how PowerLine devices can be used