D-Link DHN-920 - 10Mb Phone Line USB Network In A Box
 A Home Network For Dummies

By Dave Altavilla - September 11, 2000

 
The proverbial "free lunch", this is what Home Networking really delivers to most people and what draws consumers down the isles of the retail store peering at boxes.  Let think about this for a moment.  Most households these days are quickly justifying the expense (if it can be afforded) of adding a second computer for the kids or possibly the spouse instead (in many cases ladies, I realize there may be a fine line between the two anyway).  Now, each one of these machines needs access to the internet and printer service.  The rest is all pretty much self contained. 

Here is where the "free lunch" comes into play.  What if you could "share" that printer and any files you would like, between two or more machines?  Oh and you know how little Katie went from hogging the phone line for voice calls to now draining bandwidth at a rate that dims the lights in the neighborhood due to her marathon AOL chat room conferences?  We have a solution for that too.  It is called a "Internet Sharing".  Specifically, we'll look at a simple "peer to peer" (no switch or hub) setup that will allow you to share your ISP connection, printers and files seamlessly without even having to open your computer case.

The D-Link DHN-920 USB Phone Line Network In A Box, is designed to work through an available USB port and your existing phone line connections already available at your residence or home office.  What could be easier?  Let's run down the details of the package.

Specifications and Features Of The DHN-920 USB Phone Line Networking Kit
Plug and Play - No Praying Required

 

 

Chipset

 

  • Broadcom iLine10 - BCM4210 Integrated MAC/Phy with BCM4100 Analog Front End

    • 10Mb Home Phoneline Networking Chipset - Home PNA 2.0 Standard Compliant

    • Simultaneous operation over the same phone line without disturbing POTS, V.90, DSL or ISDN services.

    • Works on existing telephone wiring, up to 1000 ft.

Standards

  • HomePNA 2.0 Compliant

  • USB Specification version 1.0/1.1 Compliant

  • OHCI, UHCI

Required Current

  • 500mA bus current as a standard USB high-power device 

Ports

  • One upstream (USB Type B receptacle)

  • Two RJ-11 (HomePNA 2.0)

Diagnostic LEDs

  • Power

  • Link (RJ-11)

  • Activity (RJ-11)

Power Requirements

  • Bus Powered - 2.5 W, 0.5 A @ 5 VDC

Included Cabling

  • 2 RJ11 Phone Line Cables, 2 USB Uplink Cables

Bundled Software and Games

  • Midpoint Lite - Internet Sharing Software

  • Diablo

  • Warcraft II

This is one of the most elegant SOHO (small office/home office) networking solutions, we have seen to date.  Each Adapter Unit has a very small footprint.

 

click for full view

 

Here you can see to scale, how tiny these little 10Mb adapters really are. 

 

 

As you see here, there is a USB uplink port to your computer's USB port and a set of RJ11 phone line jacks that also pass through the connection to your existing analog modem or phone hand set. 

 

So, lets show you how things are set up here.

 

Software, Setup and Installation

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