How can powerline ethernet adapters be faster than their hardware ports?

On many of the powerline ethernet adapters, they claim high speeds of 500 Mbps, however, I've noticed that the actual jack on the device is only 10/100 Mbps speed. For reference - look at the specs: http://www.tp-link.us/products/details/?categoryid=1658&model=TL-PA4010KIT#spec

The actual interface is 10/100 Mbps. How is it possible to achieve 500 Mbps speeds when the actual jack is a much slower speed?

How can I secure an Ethernet-over-power network?

I just bought myself an Ethernet-over-power adapter, and plugged it in. It seems to be working great, but now I'm concerned that my neighbours may be able to access my network.

I live in a rowhome complex; is it possible they can access my network? If so, how can I secure it?

Powerline Ethernet adapters

I installed two of the Netgear Powerline AV networking adapters last night and they work great. I went through and got both of the endpoints configured to use encryption.

I'm relatively new to these, I'm curious: With sending my traffic out over my electrical wiring (Presumably encrypted now) Does the signal / info leak out over the power grid?

I.E. could you theoretically sniff the power line for traffic if someone in your vicinity was also using Powerline ethernet?

Does adding additional Powerline networking adapters improve overall performance?

I am unable currently using 2 Powerline network adapters with mixed results. Was curious if adding additional adapters would improve overall performance. Thus far have been unable to find a clear answer.

How can I make sure my power line network is secure?

I installed four powerline adapters in my apartment in a huge apartment building. I noticed that in the appartment two stories above me, the power line adapter is still able to connect to the other ones!

Is there a way to set up a password or other kind of security so that I don't share my internet with other 44 apartment units?

Normally the signal should stop at the power meter, do I have the right to force my electricity company to fix it?

Can I mix and match ethernet over powerline plugs?

A while ago I purchased a TP-Link ethernet over power kit from my local Aldi. It works really well, and I'd like to add more, but they no longer sell that particular product. If I were to buy a D-Link plug (or whatever brand), would that still work?

As a basic example, if I have (only) one of the TP-Links plugged into the modem, and (only) one of the D-Links plugged into my PC -- no matching brand of plug -- would it work as expected?

Get rid of buzzing noise when playing videos over ethernet-over-power?

Just bought one of these guys, and it's able to stream 1080p video across my house, but now there's a soft buzzing noise coming from my speakers. I'm guessing it's interference from my powerlines? The picture OTOH looks to be perfect quality.

How do I fix it? Is it a faulty device? Do I need to run it through a power cleaner? Is it unavoidable?

One outlet is attached to one of the adapters and nothing else, the other one shares an outlet with my TV.

Does Ethernet over Power Lines work well for home networking?

I am considering putting a computer in my garage (geek alert) and my wireless signal is simply to weak to get through all of the concrete, steel, etc.

I've seen products at Fry's for Ethernet over power lines, but have not tried it. Is this a good solution for home use?

http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters/HDXB101.aspx

Powerline Patched Fonts on OSX 10.9.3 - iTerm2 & Chrome

I'm looking for a working solution for rendering powerline characters on OSX in iTerm2 and Chrome. There's a lot of documentation around I've attempted to use several methods, none seem to work correctly so far (though prepatched fonts with fontbook partially works). Details included below.

1. Is there a working method for getting the powerline glyphs to render correctly in iTerm2 on OSX 10.9.3?
2. Should the powerline glyphs be rendering correctly in web pages? Any idea why they are not and how I can fix it?

How does the rendering of these characters work (at a system/application level)? Does it differ from application to application? In chrome, if the current font does not contain bindings for the glyphs, will chrome attempt to find the bindings in another font present on the system and use those? Is there any way to provide bindings for this unicode characters at a system level so that they will render using that font, regardless of the font that is being used?

Unicode Private Area Characters

If I understand the way powerline-compatible patched fonts work, they bind scalable graphics to specific values in the unicode private use area:

U+E0A0     Version control branch
U+E0A1     LN (line) symbol
U+E0A2     Closed padlock
U+E0B0     Rightwards black arrowhead
U+E0B1     Rightwards arrowhead
U+E0B2     Leftwards black arrowhead
U+E0B3     Leftwards arrowhead

To test the glyphs in a terminal, I've read that this should work:

echo -e "\ue0a0\ue0a1\ue0a2\ue0b0\ue0b1\ue0b2\ue0b3"

However it does not work for me (OSX 10.9.3, iTerm2, zsh) even with a powerline-patched font installed and iTerm2 configured to use one of those fonts.

I've tried several methods for installing the patched fonts:

FontBook & Prepatched Fonts

I downloaded the fonts from Localtog/powerline-fonts and installed them using FontBook. On same pages, some of the glyphs render but others do not. On other pages, none of the glyphs render:

In iTerm2 (this happens with all of the powerline fonts I've tested), some of the characters render, but others do not:

In macvim (terminal) with vim-airline installed, some of the characters render, but some render incorrectly:

Fontconfig

I uninstalled all the powerline-patched fonts, installed fontconfig with homebrew, installed the powerline font, and rebuilt the font cache:

wget -P ~/.fonts/ https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/raw/develop/font/PowerlineSymbols.otf
wget -P ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/ https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/raw/develop/font/10-powerline-symbols.conf
fc-cache -vf ~/.fonts

The font was detected and fontconfig said it was installed, however it did not appear in FontBook and I was unable to select it in iTerm2.

After running this, I removed the fonts, reran fc-cache, and uninstalled fontconfig.

I am currently using the prepatched fonts installed in fontbook, which partially work, but I'm hoping someone can help me understand the issue a little bit better so I can find a working solution.

Update

This method seems to make everything work in iTerm2, though I am still unsure about chrome/system rendering issues.

FontForge

Install fontforge with python bindings:

brew install fontforge --with-python

Install powerline-fontpatcher:

mkdir -p ~/.local/src
git clone https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline-fontpatcher.git ~/.local/src/powerline-fontpatcher
cd ~/.local/src/powerline-fontpatcher && python setup.py install && cd
export powerline_symbols=~/.local/src/powerline-fontpatcher/fonts/powerline-symbols.sfd

Download, patch & install font:

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/files/SourceCodePro_FontsOnly-1.017.zip
unzip SourceCodePro_FontsOnly-1.017.zip

find SourceCodePro_FontsOnly-1.017/TTF -name \*.ttf -exec powerline-fontpatcher --source-font=$powerline_symbols --no-rename {} \;
mv *.ttf /Library/Fonts

Are powerline Ethernet adapters actual bridges?

I have AT&T U-Verse, and they use IP multicast (and IGMPv3) for IPTV. Receivers wired into my network work just fine but receivers connected over powerline Ethernet don't. Computers connected over the same powerline link work just fine.

These powerline Ethernet adapters are sold as "bridges", but they don't actually appear to be bridging. A bridge should forward all broadcast/multicast traffic unless it can determine that such forwarding is not necessary, shouldn't it?

TP -Link powerline adapters randomly disconnect

I recently bought a new PC which I use for gaming (mostly online games like TF2). In order to play the games without lag, the sales assistant suggested I use an ethernet connection rather than wireless. Because my computer is upstairs while my router is downstairs, I bought TP-Link powerline adapters that go through the house mains. I can't remember the model name but this is what they look like:

However, at seemingly random times with no clear pattern, I will be disconnected from the internet. The icon in the bottom left of my screen that shows my internet connection will have a yellow warning triangle next to it, and I will be disconnected from any server I am on. Upon turning off the TP-Link adapters at the wall and turning them on again, the problem fixes and I am once again able to connect to the internet with no problem. How do I fix this issue?

I have windows 7 home premium.

UPDATE: I have discovered that turning the connector off at the socket and then turning it back on again fixes the problem. It still occurs randomly however, forcing me to crawl under my desk every time it disconnects.

Setting custom (Powerline) fonts in the default OSX Terminal app

I was able to set a custom font in Iterm 2 by setting the Non-ASCII option in Iterm's setting.

I was not able to find a similar option in the default Mac OS Terminal. How can I do this for Mac OS Terminal?

Ethernet and networking speeds as "500 Mbps Gigabit"?

I am quite confused with networking and speeds and such. I want to buy something so its throwing Google off - if I type in the keywords I just get websites selling the products I want, not information about them. (Sometimes Google's too good for its own good!)

The product

So, I want to get a main's Ethernet power adapter like this one:

Amazon product page: TP-Link TL-PA511KIT 500 Mbps Gigabit Powerline Adapter - Twin Pack
TP-Link product page: AV500 Gigabit Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA511KIT)

• HomePlug AV standard compliant, high-speed data transfer rate of up to 500Mbps, ideal for HD video or 3D video streaming and online gaming
• Mains Filter for better powerline communication performance
• No new wires, use existing electrical wiring
• Up to 300 meter range over a home's electrical circuit for better performance through walls or across floors
• Plug and Play, no new wires or configuration required
• Patented Power-Saving Mode automatically reduces power consumption by up to 85%
• 128-bit AES encryption ensures that the network is safe simply by pressing a button on paired devices
• Built-in QoS assures the quality of bandwidth sensitive applications such as voice, video and online games
• Supports IGMP managed multicast IP transmission, optimizes IPTV streaming

My Question:

It is refered as an "500 Mbps Gigabit Powerline Adapter".

What does this mean? In my head if its 500Mbps then its not Gigabit? Surely a Gigabit is 1000Mbps?

There is another, slightly cheaper model which is 500Mbps, but is NOT Gigabit. Well, what difference does this make? What's the point in getting a Gigabit one, when I'm only going to get speeds of 500Mbps anyway?

Also, what does 10/100, 10/100/1000, 100/1000 mean in relation to these? That's the Ethernet "description" or "specification" but it doesn't mean anything to me!

Powerline network adapters vs wireless range extender

My home office is upstairs and I do not get good wireless reception there (1-2 bars, max ~18Mbps network speed, and speedtest.net tops out at around 2Mbps). About 6 feet away from the metal spiral staircase (if that's relevant) leading upstairs, however, I get 5 bars, 54MBps, and ~7.5Mbps from speedtest.net. This is with wireless-G and WPA2-AES security.

I was considering getting a range extender and hiding it somewhere in that high strength room in hopes of giving me good wireless upstairs, but then I heard about powerline adapters which gives me another option to get better Internet upstairs.

In general, which of the two is better? There are options out there for both that will cost me less than $100 for new hardware, so I do not care about price. I am interested in: (a) whether or not the quality loss from going powerline still beats the quality loss from repeating wireless and (b) if going powerline necessarily makes me network less secure than using WPA2-AES.

Thanks!

Does a mixed Powerline AV 500 and 200 network slow down the 500 nodes?

I have two netgear powerline AV 500 ethernet adapters that give me near ideal internet access on my media computer (FIOS 25/25mpbs tests out at 8ms 25.4/24.7) and perhaps 100-140mbps to my router, printer, drive, etc. I now want to add a few wifi points and instead of having the mess of a powerline adapter + a wifi router I think it will be neater to have an all in one solution. Most of the ones that I find are 200mbps, however. I know that 500 is backwards compatible, but will a mixed solution slow everything down like it can for a mixed wireless g/n network?