When you leave the US, you take a lot of things for granted. Stable power is one of them. I live in a condo wired for 220 VAC in a country where the current measures anywhere from 190 to 260 VAC depending on the whims of the grid. Needless to say, the base of my equipment rack is seriously insured against anti-gravity with about 100 lbs. of power filtering and voltage conversion gear. To make sure I get the most power possible, my rack is plugged into the special outlet in the wall designed for the AC unit and rated at 60 AMPS. For all I know this is the electrical equivalent of connecting your toilet to a fire hydrant.
The net connection (DSL) comes in on the other side of the condo. For quite a while I ran my Sputnik AP160 to make the Link to my office equipment rack – but I really wanted to have the Sputnik gear on the firewalled side of my DSL connection. I didn’t want to run any cables so I looked into the various Ethernet over AC Power line devices. Netgear and Linksys appear to only support 120 VAC. I noticed as I was walking out of CompUSA that Sling Media has these things called Slinglink. It’s a Ethernet over AC power line device that support 110 VAC through 240 VAC. These problem solving little devices are super handy, and appear to work well in the ungrounded electrical madness that makes up the local power system.
So, in short I was able to get my net connection set up in such a way that I am happy with it. If you have that oddball 220 VAC problem, as much of the world does, go with the Slinglink! Now, if I can just find an afforable solution for my X10 needs!
