D-Link PowerLine AV 500 4-Port Gigabit Switch (DHP-540)

Summary

D-Link Powerlink AV500 products are one of the best home networking solutions out there. It is simple to install, easy to maintain and easy to scale and upgrade. It works great in majority of house and condo setups. Great networking products that I highly recommend.

Review

D-Link has been working on power line based networking for many years. The AV500 and AV2 600 line of networking products are the 3rd and 4th generation. The PowerLine AV500 4-Port Gigabit Switch is a midrange priced switch with the ability to connect to your home network anywhere a power outlet is available.

The installation of the switch is very simple. You plug it in to the power socket directly. At the other end of your home or office where your other part of the network is, connect that to an Powerline AV adaptor and have it plugged in to a nearby power outlet. Within 2 minutes, you press the smart connect buttons on the switch and the adaptor. Then your network extension is done.

There are more advanced way to setup the adaptor and the switch with the Powerline AV Utility. But from my experience it is not neccesary most of the time.

The most impressive part of the Powerline connection is its speed and stability comparing to wireless connection. It can carry upto 500Mbps connection speed if the power lines you can use are quite “clean”. I will explain more about that later. The Powerline adaptors, switches from various generations can also talk to each other so there is no need of forced upgrade of all the components of the network at the same time. The drawback though is that the older adaptors like the first generation AV 200 will cap the part of the network at a lower speed.

Now, we have to talk about the power line quality issue.

The main issue that affects the performance of powerline based networking is the availability of clean power lines. There are several types of non-computer electric appliances that can jam the power line so hard that you cannot get the connection speed you want.

First, anything with an AC motor in it belongs to this category. That includes paper shredder, a fan or a dish washer. From my testing, these items, even when they are turned off, plugged into one of the sockets within the same series to the sockets where the AV adaptors are will drop the connection speed significantly.

Second, some cheap AC adaptors that convert AC to DC for say your computer speakers or charger for your cell phone can reduce the speed of the network too. This problem, however, is easily solvable by putting the AC adaptor on a power bar with power filter.

Thus, if you do not have many electric equipments plugged in everywhere in your house, setting up the Powerline AV network will be a bliss. However, if you have a pretty jam packed place with things plugged in everywhere, you may have to sort out the items that can reduce network speed first.

For city people who live in condo or apartment, there is one more issue which is difficult to resolve. If your electricity is shared in the building, meaning the wiring of the electricity in your unit may easily be mingled with the other units next to yours, you may not be able to find a clean outlet at all.

As a summary the D-Link Powerline AV products are excellent networking components that save time and effort in connecting a network. One has to be aware of its weaknesses related to certain type of electric appliances but other than that there can be no complain about them.

I highly recommend the D-Link Powerline products for general networking need.

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