Digging into Phoneline Networking and HomePNA 2.0

All tests were conducted using TCP transmissions of 1000KB. Each test was run six times and their results averaged. Wherever possible, we used the newest drivers and firmware for each of the devices.

We ran a battery of initial testing back in October, before the Cutting all Cables article to determine which of the HPNA products we had in the lab showed the strongest performance. Building on that, we chose the Linksys HPN200 PCI card to be a testing partner for the other stations.

This decision was made because the Broadcom chipset is very common, yet inexpensive and is the heart of a variety of HomePNA 2.0 devices. Also, our initial testing showed that devices based on the Broadcom chipset offered the highest performance. Other pairings were also tested to ensure there were no compatibility issues between the Linksys cards and other stations.