The Easy Way to Extend Your Network
by Brian Underdahl
Our Internet connection comes in one end of the house and through some wired and wireless connections, reaches each of our PCs. But our entertainment center is at the opposite end of the house where it’s not really convenient to run a network cable. Sound familiar? Needless to say, this was going to make it hard to get a good Internet connection for things like downloading movies and using interactive content on the media center. Wireless was good enough for audio-only uses, but video was going to take a whole lot more.
Sure, I tried laying a (very) long network cable across the floor from one end of the house to the other, but somehow Darlene didn’t quite care for that solution. But stringing new wires inside the solid foam cores of our walls isn’t easy, either–especially since we’re dealing with second floor spaces. That’s when I went hunting for a better solution.
The Corinex High Definition Video Connectivity Kit turned out to be the perfect answer. The kit includes two adapters that plug into ordinary power outlets and extend your network from one end of the house to the other using your existing power wires. Just connect one of the included network cables to your router or PC to one adapter, and then connect whatever needs an Internet connection at the other end of the house to the second adapter. Your network is extended and because the Corinex kit is considerably faster than the typical wireless connection, video is no problem. There’s even a filter you can use to cut out interference from a noisy appliance (although we didn’t need to use it).
This is a great kit even though it’s not completely plug-and-play. Before you can use the kit you need to do some simple configuration of the adapters using one of your PCs. Fortunately this doesn’t take very long but if you’re the type who expects to be able to ignore the instructions you’ll have a bit of frustration when there’s no immediate connection between the two adapters. Simple lesson here–read the directions.
With a kit like this one there’s no excuse anymore for not bringing your Internet connection to the far end of your house. Whether you want to download movies, play Internet games on your XBox 360, or simply surf the web from the comfort of your sofa, the Corinex kit is the easy way to extend your network.