Plaster Networks PLN3 PLC Network Adapter is Plug-and-Play

To be honest over the past couple of months I've run into some wireless connectivity products that frankly have surprised me.

The source of my surprise is the fact that these products actually work and they work without losing a half a day waiting on the phone for customer service to run you around in circles.

This was the exact situation I ran into with recently with Plaster Networks' PLN3 powerline carrier (PLC) adapter kit.

This past winter the company, which is a fairly new networking company, sent me its PLN3 kit along with IX2 power isolator power strip to prove to me that its retrofit-friendly network adapter works as easily as it says.

After unpacking the boxes I ran a short Cat-5 cable, which was supplied in the kit from my network switch to one of the adapters and plugged the power strip into my wall receptacle in the downstairs of my home. Next, I plugged another unit into a wall socket in my bedroom and connected the another Cat-5 cable to it and a Vidabox TouchClient 20 television/media center console.

That was the extent of my installation. I quickly verified a network connection with the Vidabox device (which is very cool by the way) and started to run through the Vidabox's Media Center functions like metadata retrieval, the sports update information, as well as some other features too that included me leaving the Media Center environment to surf the Web with the TouchClient 20's Internet Explorer browser.

On the Web I found no noticeable lag, latency or connectivity problems while browsing sites like Boston.com, CE Pro.com and the connectivity for the metadata seemed as quick and responsive as if I had a traditional hardwired or wireless connection.

Looking to see if I could trip the PLC adapter system up I moved the Vidabox unit to my family room and plugged it in another socket that was also plugged into noisy devices like my Apple iPhone dock. If you'll excuse the pun, the Plaster Networks' solution was unphased by my iPhone's noisy power supply and the Meridian F80 that was connected to the iPhone dock for music listening purposes.

In all, I couldn't be more pleased with the Plaster Networks' powerline adapter kit. It comes with some short run Cat-5 cables, it connects simply and it works straight from the box with no configuration. I think that this is a neat little problem solver that installers could easily use with Blu-ray players, Media Center devices and Apple TVs without having to add more wires or complex network components.