Product Reviews

Where wireless refuses to work properly, powerline networking can help. The technology transmits your network data over your mains cabling, so wherever you have a power socket you have a potential network port. Panasonic is the latest company to release powerline networking kit with its BL-PA100KT. This set includes two network adaptors, making it appear to be better value when compared to rival kits such as Devolo's DLAN 200 AVdesk Starter Kit, which costs £100. Rather than using the HomePlug AV standard (200Mbit/s), Panasonic has developed its own 190Mbit/s standard.

This means the BL-PA100KT is a little different to configure to the HomePlug adaptors we've reviewed before. Each adaptor has a switch on it that lets you select whether it's a Master or Terminal. There can be only one Master adaptor on your network, and every other adaptor has to be a Terminal. To get the two to talk together, you have to press the Setup button on the Master and then the Setup button on the Terminal to join them to the same network. This process has to be repeated for each adaptor you plug in, but it's not much of a chore.

As

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well as joining the adaptors to the same network, it turns on encryption, too. This means that you never have an unprotected network. With HomePlug, there's no need for initial configuration, as all adaptors can talk to each other. However, the link isn't encrypted, so there's a good chance that your next-door neighbour could join your network by plugging in their own HomePlug adaptor. To encrypt a HomePlug network, each adaptor has to be configured with software and given the same password. From this perspective, Panasonic's BL-PA100KT kit is considerably easier to configure and it's secure straight out of the box. The HomePlug standard could be improved with an easy configuration like this.

Panasonic's BL-PA100KT has a 10Mbit/s slower stated speed than HomePlug AV, but as stated speeds don't mean much, we were still expecting similar actual performance results. Copying a 100MB file three times over the network results gave us good throughputs, but Devolo's DLAN 200 AVdesk Starter Kit trumped this with a throughput of 38.1Mbit/s. The BL-PA100KT's performance sat directly in the middle of what we would expect from HomePlug 85Mbit/s adaptors and HomePlug AV adaptors.

Panasonic's BL-PA100KT has a lot going for it. Its performance is certainly good enough for web browsing and sharing the occasional file. The price is also attractive and, if you just have one PC out of wireless range that you need to connect to your router, it's good value. That said, Devolo's DLAN 200 AVdesk Starter Kit is only £12 more expensive, has better performance and, as it uses a common standard, you'll be able to buy new adaptors to work with it more easily should you want to expand your network.