dh10p - Ethernet of power line adapter

My Ethernet powerline modules turned up yesterday so I set about playing with them.

They are model DH10P_9010 made by a company called Comtrend however if you look up the first 6 digits of the mac address 001396 you'll see that the manufacturer is really AcBel.

A quick search of AcBel's website reveals the device. So it looks like Comtrend who use to manufacturer their own device has decided that simply flogging off other peoples is more profitable under the code DH-10PF.

I currently have one located in the room with my WAN feed and Router, the other is free roaming around the house. The speed down these is pretty good I get ~100Mbps from this 200Mbps device which is as good as you could expect. Depending upon the power cable ring I choose it can vary by up to 20Mbps. I suspect the throughput of 200Mbps is a half duplex rating so at Full Duplex you get 100Mbps - cheeky marketing sods.

It uses the Spanning_tree_protocol to create an 802.1d bridge. One unit needs to be designed the Root Bridge (master) it's doesn't matter which device has this role. The Amber AP light will be lit on this unit.

If you cable one directly to your PC and run WIRESHARK you'll see what happens when they start up. They send out STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) and DHCP DISCOVER packets, this means that the one attached to the DHCP server will get its IP address first and becoming the master Access Point.

Once all the device have been allocated an IP address examine your DHCP server and see what IP addresses got farmed. Point your browser at one of them to access the devices WEB management interface. The default web access password is admin

I bought these off ebay so I see they are BT supplied units. Interesting to note it's only the firmware that has been branded from the outside there is no BT logo at all.

The firmware version is: spirit_dh10pf_9010 s2_2_9-BT-V3.3_cvs