Call me a Luddite, but I've always found the whole idea of setting up a dedicated wired connection just to get an AC-powered gadget connected to the network to be a superfluous hassle. I've already hooked up one (thick) wire, the AC power cord. Why can't I just use it for network packet-shuttling purposes, too? In fact, I can; that's the whole premise of powerline networking, although few devices (save the occasional router) currently integrate the power-transported-packets function within them. Instead, indicative of the still-embryonic state of this particular market, you're forced to externally connect a dedicated Ethernet-to-powerline bridge adapter, which you then connect to a different AC socket.

Conceptually, however, the single-connection vision remains valid. And I've noticed encouraging signs of market maturation in recent months. Now-conventional '200 Mbps' powerline adapters are now advertised on sale for around $50 for a two-pack; that's less than half the price that manufacturers and retail partners were promoting not so very long ago. And latest-generation '500 Mbps' adapter two-packs are selling for not much more moola; $75 or so.

I've been daily using as well as periodically evaluating various powerline networking technologies since mid-2004, back in the '14 Mbps' HomePlug 1.0 days. Given recent trends, I figured I was due for an evaluation revisit. How well do latest generation adapters fulfill their marketing promises? Can we finally dispense with burrowing through dirty, spider- and snake-infested crawlspaces and drilling holes in walls and floors in order to route Cat5e cable around?

The world of wireless networking products has been slowly advancing over the past decade or so. We started at 11Mbps 802.11b and 54Mbps 802.11a in 1999, added 54Mbps 802.11g in 2003, and then 802.11n in 2009 (though we first saw this in Draft-N form in early 2008) brought us support for 150Mbps and up to 600Mbps connections, depending on the controller and antenna configuration. We have yet to see any 600Mbps parts, and since the launch of 802.11n, the major differentiating factor among the product landscape is what level of 802.11n support they provide. Is the card 2x2:2, or 3x3:3 MIMO (or something else)? Does it have dual-band support or is it 2.4GHz only? How many data streams can the card support on each frequency? All of these elements affect potential performance and throughput, but is there still a difference between products that are otherwise specced the same? Enter the Bigfoot Killer Wireless-N 1102.

In order to prove that all wireless networking products are not created equal, Bigfoot is entering the market and claiming to be the new king of the hill. We’ve been testing their 2x2:2 MIMO part, the 1102, for the past couple of months. It has dual-band support with connection speeds of up to 300Mbps. Bigfoot claims to have the best throughput of any current wireless device, including most 3x3:3 solutions, and they have custom drivers, firmware, and software to help improve latency and other aspects of performance. To help us do some real apples-to-apples testing, Bigfoot shipped us two identical notebooks, courtesy of Mythlogic Computers, with the only difference being the wireless chip in each laptop. Of course, we have other wireless devices on hand, so we decided to throw additional combatants into the ring. Can Bigfoot’s Killer 1102 live up to their claims of overall superiority? Join us as we investigate performance under a variety of situations.

NETGEAR has introduced their latest 4x4 MIMO wireless bridge device designed specifically for video data. This isn't an area where we've focused a lot of time in the past, but let's will see how well the NETGEAR 3DHD stacks up to a couple other wireless bridging solutions. Can you reliably transmit high bitrate data and video over a wireless connection using the equipment?

Instead of the usual booth at CES, Netgear opted for private demo suites at the Marriot this time around. They also had a press conference on Tuesday, which I deliberately refrained from writing about because AnandTech is all about digging up the actual interesting news and doing the analysis right before getting it to the readers.

I had covered some Netgear press releases about their powerline networking products and the NeoTV 550 last August. At CES, we have some refreshes on top of that list, as well as some updates on the NTV 550 front (which has already found its way into the hands of a small number of US customers). Without further ado, onto the details!

If you are looking to improve your virtualized datacenter, 10Gb Ethernet really deserves your attention. It delivers more than twice as much bandwidth as quad-port gigabit, lower latency, lower power per gigabit, and the ability to greatly simplify your network infrastructure--especially with virtualized servers. 10GbE is a game changer for I/O virtualization; it is much more than “a bigger pipe” for your (virtualized) network traffic. That is the good news.

The bad news is that you have to take quite a few hurdles before I/O virtualization does it's magic. One bad decision and you end up with a power gobbling, CPU hogging monster. We gathered two modern 10GbE NICs, one from Solarflare and one from Neterion, and checked if they are really an improvement compared to the typical Intel 82598 NIC. This article is not a simple throughput and latency benchmarking review, but turned out to be a story about how virtualization technologies like VT-d, IOMMU, Netqueue, SR-IOV and I/O convergence can make sense in the modern datacenter.

Almost all CE devices sold in the market today have some sort of connection to the Internet as well as the home network. The consumers' need to transfer data back and forth between various locations in their residences has led to wireless routers becoming ubiquitous in every home connected to the Internet. However, wireless networking is not a worry-free solution for everyone. The real world performance of wireless networks heavily depends on the layout and construction of the house, as well as the nature of other CE devices operating simultaneously. Running an Ethernet cable around the house is a very good option, but is not worth the hassle and cost for many. Given this situation, the electrical network inside the house looks like an unexploited part of the equation. The HomePlug AV standard aims to take advantage of the electrical wiring inside the house to network various computers and various CE products.

In today's review, we will look at Western Digital's first foray into the HomePlug AV market, the WD Livewire. The company claims that the intent of the product is to deliver the Internet to various locations in your house, including the place where the TV and devices like the WDTV Live are placed. Does the WD Livewire succeed in this respect? Read on to find out.

This month Bigfoot Networks will be releasing the next in their line of KIller NICs: the Killer 2100. The 2100 will be replacing last year's Killer Xeno Pro, and as with the rest of the Killer line is targeted towards gaming enthusiasts who would benefit from a better NIC. Bigfoot continues to believe that their embedded Linux based NIC can offer better network performance and better features than standard NICs, and for the Killer 2100 they will be augmenting their hardware with a new suite of end-user software to drive this point home.

For today’s announcement and ahead of our review of the card next week, we will be taking a quick look at just what Bigfoot has in store for the Killer 2100. Specifically we’ll be looking at what their new software stack is like and how their marketing approach for the Killer 2100 differs from past cards. And while we can’t immediately address the usual skepticism that comes with a Killer NIC launch, we’ll at least have an idea of how Bigfoot thinks they’ll be better able to showcase their hardware’s benefits with their new software and monitoring tools and how they hope to grab customers’ attention with the Killer 2100 where the Killer Xeno Pro couldn’t.

Next week we’ll have our full review of the Killer 2100, in the meantime read on to find out more about what’s being announced today.

Bigfoot Networks has a new generation of more affordable high performance network cards. These add some features beyond the original, but are they worth it?

We provide an an early glimpse of Draft N 2.0 performance with the TRENDnet TEW-633GR.

Our review of the Killer NIC raises more questions than answers.

Our review of the D-Link DIR-625 RANGEBOOSTER N router reveals a solid design that is dogged by the current performance of Draft N chipsets.