Product Reviews

The main problem with HomePlug is that you need one adaptor for each device you want to plug in. If you have a concentration of network devices, you'll probably find yourself running out of plugs. For this reason, VeseNET has released its 3x Ethernet Adapter. This puts three 10/100 Ethernet ports on a single 85Mbit/s HomePlug adaptor. Sadly, a faster 200Mbit/s HomePlug AV version is not available.

The 3x Ethernet Adapter is as easy to configure as all the other HomePlug adaptors we've reviewed. Plugging it in joins it to any unprotected network. If you want to use encryption, the utility provided lets you password-protect your network and encrypt traffic using 56-bit

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DES. Other than this, there's no configuration required.

Having three ports on one adaptor is a good idea in theory, but we were a little disappointed with the implementation. Instead of the three ports being connected to a 10/100 Ethernet switch, they communicate using HomePlug. This means you're limited to a maximum speed of 85Mbit/s, and the quality of the power in your home directly affects the communication speed. We had lots of problems using the 3x Ethernet Adapter in our labs, and it managed a maximum transfer rate of only 1.74Mbit/s between two PCs connected to its ports. Running it at home improved matters no end, though, and we got a much healthier 52.82Mbit/s.

We were also provided with a single-port VeseNET Ethernet Adapter (£31), so we re-ran our test plugging one PC into the single-port adaptor and one into the 3x Ethernet Adapter. This time, our throughput of 25.44Mbit/s was in line with other 85Mbit/s HomePlug kit we've tested before.

If you have a lot of devices in one place that don't need to talk to each other, the HomePlug 3x Ethernet Adapter is very good value. However, if you have devices that do need to talk to each other, buy a single-port HomePlug adaptor and connect it to a dedicated Ethernet switch.