4. Setup & Administration

HomePlug devices are protected with 56 bit DES encryption incorporating a user-settable 4 to 24 character alphanumeric, case-sensitive key. All the utility applications supplied with the products refer to the key as the "Private Network Name". In the case of all the tested devices, this name came set to "HomePlug". The good thing about this is that you can just plug in the devices and (hopefully) be up and running without having to load any software or configure anything.

The bad news is that HomePlug technology is capable of reaching into adjacent apartments, dorm rooms and even your next-door neighbor's home. So if you don't change the default Network name and your neighbor also decides to use a HomePlug device, your networks could be accidentally joined and security compromised.

The further bad news is that Intellon has seen fit to create a password change utility only for Windows, leaving Mac OS, Linux and users of any other non-Windows OS with no choice but to run with the default password. In addition, since none of the devices come with a physical reset-to-factory-default switch, those users are also out of luck if they happen to inherit HomePlug devices that have had their default password changed.

If you are running Windows, you might want to load up the utility at some point because it provides some useful performance and troubleshooting data. Figure 6 shows the info displayed by the NETGEAR utility about the other four adapters plugged into various outlets around my home. Of course, the Rate shown is the MAC layer, i.e. raw data, rate and not the application-level, i.e. usable throughput. More on this shortly.

Figure 6: NETGEAR Utility Main screen