Just plug it into an outlet and you're connected to the internet!

This is a story about when I was using Windows Me and Windows XP before wireless LAN became so popular. A new standard has appeared that says, "Instead of laying LAN cables in your home or office, let's build a LAN using existing outlets!" That is the standard called "PLC", which is an acronym for Power Line Communication. In Japanese, "power line carrier communication" is just that.

　Initial PLC had a slow communication speed of several tens to several hundred kbps. As for how much, it's slow when you exceed the upper limit of the communication capacity of your smartphone (laughs). I can't watch videos, and I feel like I'm finally out of line and email (if there's an attachment!).

Then around 2006, it evolved into "HD-PLC (High Definition Power Line Communication)" with communication speeds increased to 200Mbps. However, in 2009, "IEEE802.11n" appeared as a standard for wireless LAN, and the communication speed was raised from 54 Mbps to 600 Mbps at once, and the communication speed was regained by Wi-Fi.

Since then, with the spread of smartphones and the drop in prices of wireless LAN devices, "Wi-Fi", or wireless LAN, has become the mainstream for home LAN, and PLC seems to have been buried in the dark as a dark history. But! PLC has now been reassessed and has begun to show momentum for a comeback!