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I did some research and while not conclusive a number of clear potential issues emerged with different causes. I know that they run their own protocol(s) which is/are quite independent of TCP IP. They should not be cross over between the two and yes this imposes both overheads and demands on the carrying structure.
1) Buildings served by more than one phase will almost certainly run into issues at some point for at least two possible reasons. While this is rare in the UK it could happen and certainly does in some other countries. (I know that the UK has rules about socket separation in such cases, but I do not want to go there.)
1.1) Home Plug will not normally work across phases unless very special arrangements are built into the specific installation to bridge the low level transport between the two or three phases in question. The problem is really almost defined by the name, Home Plug. Three phase is normally intended for industrial installations, Home Plug for home use on a single phase.
1.2) High capacity devices demanding considerable power may also produce a ‘noisy’ mains this may blind the likes of Home Plug or cause severe distortions to the protocol rending them unusable without special considerations.
2) Installations where noisy electrical equipment is also operated. This refers to domestic type installations such as homes where the likes of tumble driers, fridges and other electrically noisy devices can range from elderly electric drills, vacuum cleaners and right across the spectrum of dodgy devices all have been known to cause intermittent troubles.. It can also apply where industrial users are co-located such as with flats over such properties or where other noisy devices may be operated in close proximity. Welders were always considered a potential cause of troubles for less tolerant devices.
3) Some manufactures have tried to mitigate some of these effects by not using the Live/Line connection but instead using the neutral and earth. Of course if the earth is noisy or even worse if the earth is noisy or degraded, (a broken or missing earth continuity counts as severely degraded) then results may be poor. (Other effects might also be encountered and having the coroner and undertaker on speed dial for someone could be wise.) Real world studies have shown improvement in Home Plug style devices from using such ‘modified’ kit. Other issues are less easily controlled.
4) At one time, dimmers, some types of fluorescent installations, especially when operating in sub optimal ways and even some LEDs were a source of considerable electrical noise and as such could swamp the private protocol used by Home plug devices. In severe cases they can and did swamp other devices such as radio, TV, etc. as well.
5) Bad electrical installations in general where neglect, original poor installation, doubtful modifications or degradation of the set up can all limit, degrade, or make operation unreliable. No one is still using the likes of double cotton covered rubber insulated wiring are they? Overhead distribution subject to damp or noise pick up could also be an issue in some cases, though the damp discharge noise might be filtered out via the local distribution transformer(s).
6) Some types of filtering device, e.g. UPS, surge protectors, isolating transformers and even some trip devices have been suggested as possible hazards for the likes of Home Plugs. In most cases remaining on one side of the device might ease potential issues and in any case they would normally be ‘hard’ issues and more easily investigated than intermittent issues.
As a general rule I suspect that anything more than an occasional reset suggests the presence of undesirable influences within the system and it would be wise to professionally investigate the issue(s).
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