mickevh
Distinguished Member
The "point" of HomePlugs is that they provide an alternative to installing "proper" wired ethernet cabling by instead tunneling data over something already existing in most homes - ie the mains electricity circuit. Early on, HomePlugs didn't have Wi-Fi capabilities at all - some still don't.
Wi-Fi AP's were built in to HomePlugs later on for the purposes of extending Wi-Fi coverage. But there's no point in providing an AP in the HP connected to your router as that routers built in AP provides coverage in that locale.
Technically (if the "right" kit were designed) you could create an HP infrastructure where the "first hop" to the rest of the (wired) network was achieved using Wi-Fi, but that's such a rare use case and so doing would have serious consequences for Wi-Fi throughput ("speed") most don't bother.
It's kind of a "why would you bother" argument: If you are going to use the mains electricity circuit to transmit data, your router is plugged into said mains (ie there's a mains socket near your router) "why would you bother" making a Wi-Fi link to your router when the infrastructure to make a wired link is already in situ and a wired link will be faster and more reliable and "free up" some Wi-Fi air time.
Wi-Fi AP's were built in to HomePlugs later on for the purposes of extending Wi-Fi coverage. But there's no point in providing an AP in the HP connected to your router as that routers built in AP provides coverage in that locale.
Technically (if the "right" kit were designed) you could create an HP infrastructure where the "first hop" to the rest of the (wired) network was achieved using Wi-Fi, but that's such a rare use case and so doing would have serious consequences for Wi-Fi throughput ("speed") most don't bother.
It's kind of a "why would you bother" argument: If you are going to use the mains electricity circuit to transmit data, your router is plugged into said mains (ie there's a mains socket near your router) "why would you bother" making a Wi-Fi link to your router when the infrastructure to make a wired link is already in situ and a wired link will be faster and more reliable and "free up" some Wi-Fi air time.