14 DAY TRIAL // Comtrend, one of the few European hardware manufacturers, has announced that the new line of Ethernet over Powerlines adapter is due to hit the shelves in the first trimester of 2008. Among other specifications, the announced adapter promises a global speed over 400 Mb/s, meaning that it will be twice as fast as the existing devices of its kind.
The underlying technology for this power adapter is supplied by DS2's powerline technology and complies with the Universal Powerline Alliance (UPA) standard. The 400-megabyte limit has been reached under controlled conditions and the manufacturer hopes to be able to reproduce it on a wider scale. The device will be sold under the commercial name of PowerGrid 940 Ethernet adaptor and will be part of the Universal Powerline Alliance standard, if so decided by the next month's vote.
The technology targets institutions or individuals "who want to stream around at least three HD signals and two standard-definition feeds around the home", as the DS2 spokesperson stated. The 400 MB/s adapter is designed to preserve its backwards compatibility to the 200 Mb/s ones that exist nowadays, but won't talk to the older (85 Mb/s or 14 Mb/s) ones.
On the other side, the rival powerline group, HomePlug Powerline Alliance, has refused to give details about their short-term plans and measures to push the current 200 Mb/s limit.
There is still one question: the promised speed sounds too good to be true and as a matter of fact, it is. The data speed has been calculated following the Wi-Fi model: it is the raw data transfer rate that takes place in ideal conditions - which is far, far away from the reality. The actual transfer rates are much slower, but as long as there's a hope for the better - even theoretically speaking - everybody is satisfied.