Echobox Home Networking Interview Transcript
For our tech radio, we looked at the Echobox, a new solution for getting broadband sent around the home. Here's our interview with Jason from Asheridge Communications.
Listen to FrequencyCast Show 77 - Raspberry Pi, Echobox, iOS6 and WOWee |
Exploring the Echobox:
Here's the transcript of our interview, from FrequencyCast Show 77:
Pete:
Now, a little bit more show and tell. Kelly, can you tell me what this is?
Kelly:
It is quite small, probably the size of a wallet. It kind of looks like it should sit on top of a television.
Pete:
Ooh, good! What connectors do we have here?
Kelly:
Well, we have two satellite connectors, an Ethernet connector and a power socket.
Pete:
They're not quite satellite connectors, although they are the screw-thread F-Plug connectors, and this is a rather interesting bit of technology. It's called the Echobox, and it's from Asheridge, and it's basically to overcome the problem of getting internet in different parts of your house. Now, in your home, you have the net. How is it connected, generally?
Kelly:
Well, we have WiFi. We tend to have a lot of problems with our WiFi, to be honest - we don't know whether it's the area, but we tend to lose internet connection quite a lot throughout the day, particularly in different rooms.
Pete:
And there are some other problems with WiFi, in that you can't necessarily get it in all the parts of the house. There are some other solutions out there - one is obviously running internet cables throughout your house, which is not practical - you won't be doing that, will you?
Kelly:
No, absolutely not.
Pete:
The other one is these things called Powerline adapters - have you heard of those?
Kelly:
Yes, I've heard of Powerline adapters.
Pete:
This is a rather unusual alternative, and this uses your home's TV aerial cabling to get the internet - interested?
Kelly:
Yes, but still quite dubious - go on.
Pete:
OK, well we spoke to Jason from Asheridge a couple of days ago, to find out why someone would need one of these Echoboxes when we have things like cables, Powerline adapters and WiFi.
Jason:
The key benefit of the Echobox solution really is speed and reliability. I'm sure most of the listeners at some point have suffered with WiFi, when it drops out or you can't get a signal and connection. Largely that's because of external WiFi interference, and also the homes we have now have all sorts of foil-lined plasterboard, etcetera, for eco purposes. All of that is reducing the WiFi signal. WiFi is a good signal when you're surfing the web and checking your emails, but it wasn't ever really designed for distributing and streaming HD video, whereas Echobox was designed from the ground up with that purpose in mind, so it doesn't get affected by outside interference, so really it's speed and reliability, to give you nice, smooth, streaming video around your home.
Pete:
Presumably you're aiming at the smart TV user, or maybe the gaming user, where they've already got a TV socket where they need their internet to be - would that be fair?
Jason:
Yes, it makes a lot of sense. As you mentioned in the lead into this, obviously you don't always want to start running Ethernet cables up and down your stairs, and tripping over them. If your house already has a perfectly good shielded, interference-free cable network, and it's running to the actual point where you want to use your devices, then it makes a lot of sense to utilise what is already there.
Pete:
And just to confirm, we are talking about TV aerials that we just use to plug into our tellies and watch Freeview?
Jason:
Yes, that's correct - just the ordinary cable which comes down from your roof aerial, and connects all of the existing TV points in your home, yes.
Pete:
OK, a silly question - do you have to have the Echobox plugged in at the main point that the aerial comes in? - or can you just plug it into any TV aerial socket anywhere in the house?
Jason:
No, you plug it in anywhere on the chain. Typically where the aerial cable comes out of your wall, you would plug that into the back of the Echobox, and the accessory kit supplied with it then gives you a cable to plug into the existing TV, so all it's doing is actually just passing the TV aerial signal through, and then adding the Ethernet traffic to it, so it's completely transparent, as far as the television is concerned.
Pete:
Now, I've been using this for three or four weeks, just to put the product through its paces, and I'm actually using it not directly connected to the main router, and not connected to the main aerial point. What I'm doing is, I'm using the Echobox to give me internet for my little Raspberry Pi, which is connected to my HD TV. Now, I know a lot of people have got aerial cabling in their home that isn't really up to scratch - dodgy connectors and splitters and whatever else, and given that we've got this 4G network coming along soon that's meant to be interfering with Freeview, is there a danger of getting interference into the Echobox, or something causing the Echobox to upset your telly?
Jason:
There are no real limitations. The Ethernet signal, which the Echobox is sending, sits in an unused frequency space which is above normal terrestrial television. It's separate, in a separate space from the 4G LTE signals, etcetera, so there's nothing else competing for that space. Likewise, it can also be used on cable TV networks as well. Because it's using shielded coax, then there are no problems in that respect.
Pete:
OK, what about the security aspect of this? - is there any danger of your neighbours being able to get into your internet using this system?
Jason:
No, it is very very secure indeed, unlike the other WiFi and Powerline mediums, which obviously leak to neighbours, potentially. This is staying within a closed cable loop within your home, and the signal power obviously involved within this stops it from being retransmitted out of TV aerials, etcetera, so no, it's a very secure way of doing data.
Pete:
OK Jason, now here's a question for you: we have several amateur radio operators that listen to FrequencyCast, and there's been a lot of controversy with these Powerline adapters, these things that use the home's mains wiring to send data around the home. Now, one of the things that these Powerline adapters, or Home Plugs, does, is turn your home into a transmitter, and cause interference with short-wave and HF. Is this something that the Echobox is going to do as well, or is this more of a friendly product?
Jason:
There is no problem like that, no, because the coax cable is shielded, both to prevent obviously outside signals coming in, and the same shielding also prevents signals leaking out again, whereas the mains cable in your home is just raw copper with a plastic insulator round it, so as you say, it's acting purely as an aerial.
Pete:
Well, that's good news. So to all the amateur radio listeners out there, tell your neighbours to get themselves an Echobox. Now, talking about the home networking side of things, what kind of data throughput, what speeds can we expect from this product?
Jason:
We've done quite extensive testing in domestic homes, and you can see this on our website - we've trialled Echobox against N Series WiFi and also Home Plug, and our average over about 100 homes, we were getting 136 Mbp/s across a network of Echoboxes. Compare that with ten to 40 megabits per second on WiFi, and about 30 to 40 on the Home Plug, so its benefits really really shine through when you look at the actual data rates that you'd be getting.
Pete:
OK, thanks for that. Now, perhaps you can help us here, Jason. We had a listener question in recently from an Andy Radka. He says that he has a barn connected to his house, and he's trying to get internet to it. Now, it's out of range of WiFi, and he was actually asking us if the Powerline adapter can help out, but thinking about it, would the Echobox be a better solution than Powerline for Andy?
Jason:
Yes, indeed - the Echobox would be very good at that - because of the signal strength that it has, then you could be good for up to 200 metres running point to point. It doesn't have to be on a network - you can just connect an Echobox at either end, connect one end to the router and the other end into the barn, and yes, it would provide a very good, reliable solution for him.
Pete:
OK, so if Andy or any of our other listeners want to get hold of an Echobox, where would they find them?
Jason:
We have our own website, which is Ethernetovercoax.co.uk, and then on there we've listed all of the current web-based and retail-based outlets where people can purchase them.
Echobox UK Availability:
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Pete:
Thanks to Jason Dando from Asheridge Communications, for telling us all about the Echobox, and you can find a longer version of that interview up on our website. The address is:
Kelly:
www.frequencycast.co.uk.
Transcript Continues: Apple iOS6 Announcement
BONUS: Longer version of our Echobox interview with Jason from Asheridge Communications (13 mins) |
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