[Soundy]

Powerline adapters work great if both ends are on the same leg of your service. Most residential systems have two 120V legs, and plugging the adapters into different legs will work, but very slowly.

You basically just plug one into an outlet at each location, then plug a network cable into the adapter. That's all there is to it.

Distance should have little or no effect on speed, but noise on the line will - if there are motors on the same circuit (fridge, A/C, etc.), you'll see speed dips when they're running, and even more when they start up.