Real world powerline speeds

womble12345

I currently have some very old Comtrend Powergrid 9020 powerlines to get internet to my PC in my lounge, they have a claimed speed of up to 200Mbps, according to LAN Speed Test software they are getting me 22Mbps upload and 17Mbps download. This isnt fast enough to stream HD video (my calculations reveal I need at least 20Mbps download to do that) and it keeps on buffering.

Unfortunately gigabit ethernet isnt possible so I was wondering if more modern powerlines with a higher claimed speed of perhaps 500Mbps or 1200Mbps would be any faster or whether I have hit the limit of my house wiring already?

Anyone got any thoughts?

Thanks

onomatopoeia99

My thoughts are that you're trying to send data at a throughput suited to proper cat5e or better network cable over twin and earth carrying a noisy 240V AC signal, so you should expect nothing.

Run the correct cable for the job. We used powerline adapters (many different kinds) as a bridge on our work network for a while and they were awful, not just unreliable but even when they were working they would at times go to below dialup performance. In the end I got fed up and came in one day with a drill, hammer, cable clips, cat5e cable and punchdown tool and did the job properly. Job jobbed, problem solved.

Carrot007

Yes, the newer ones are much better and the theoretical maximums mean little.

I get the full bandwidth of my FTTC connection using some (computer is in a wireless deadzone!), so around 50.

Not sure why you think you need 20 for streaming though. Even 4K streams do not use that.

Remember to only use the new ones though as any old plugs on the network will bring the whole network down to their level.

They are not without issue, but speed certainly is not one.

Geodark

Does the theoretical speeds not require perfectly clean supplies? I know our house has old wiring, with fridges, microwaves etc on it and the quality of the signal is really poor due to this. any devices like this can cause problems (at least they could on the older ones, not sure on newer ones)

womble12345

I worked out I needed 20Mbps by doing the following maths....

I have a 6min video that is 1 gigabyte
1 gigabyte = 8000 megabits
6 minutes = 6 * 60 = 360 seconds

Therefore in order to play this file I need 8000/360 = 22.22 megabits per second (Mbps).

This video was a video which stutters, I recorded it using my HD camcorder and edited in Movie maker and extracted as an HD file.

Does anyone have any real world figures of what they can get on 200Mbps powerlines vs say 500Mbps powerlines?

System

womble12345 wrote: »

I currently have some very old Comtrend Powergrid 9020 powerlines to get internet to my PC in my lounge, they have a claimed speed of up to 200Mbps, according to LAN Speed Test software they are getting me 22Mbps upload and 17Mbps download. This isnt fast enough to stream HD video (my calculations reveal I need at least 20Mbps download to do that) and it keeps on buffering.

Are you streaming from your own internal server or from the internet? If from the internet what is the speed of your throughput doing speed tests with your ISP?

No idea why you don't think its fast enough to stream HD video - Netflix do 1080p with 5.1 Surround Sound with 5.5mbps.

womble12345

I am streaming a home video from my NAS (which is plugged via ethernet into the router). It seems that the HD video my family videos are filmed in are significantly larger than the HD from the likes of Netflix, not sure why though?

ChuckMountain

Your own video on HD Camcorder has a higher bitrate than quite a lot of streamed stuff but that in itself is not unusual.

4K Netflix "only" requires up to around 25Mbps or so.

But you either way you need to support what you want to watch, it doesn't matter if a HD internet stream has lower requirements

Advertised figures are always duplex i.e. the sum in both directions so maximum could only ever be half that of the advertised speed. This assumes your electrical cables have some magic unicorn properties though ...

Typically a 500Mbps would be around 50Mbps or so, again depending on your house.

Here is quite a good site which will give you an idea or real world speeds. Doesn't have all of them but will give you an idea

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/powerline/view

I would also advocate trying to run a proper network cable as you will get the same much higher transfer rate day in day out.

womble12345

ChuckMountain wrote: »

Your own video on HD Camcorder has a higher bitrate than quite a lot of streamed stuff but that in itself is not unusual.

4K Netflix "only" requires up to around 25Mbps or so.

But you either way you need to support what you want to watch, it doesn't matter if a HD internet stream has lower requirements

Advertised figures are always duplex i.e. the sum in both directions so maximum could only ever be half that of the advertised speed. This assumes your electrical cables have some magic unicorn properties though ...

Typically a 500Mbps would be around 50Mbps or so, again depending on your house.

Here is quite a good site which will give you an idea or real world speeds. Doesn't have all of them but will give you an idea

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/powerline/view

I would also advocate trying to run a proper network cable as you will get the same much higher transfer rate day in day out.

Thanks for that link, it seems to hint that I may improve speeds if I buy some newer faster powerlines from a reputable make.

Thanks

System

Don't rule out TPLink, avoid D-Link networking gear like the plague as it seems to not last more than 2-3 years before falling over.

thescouselander

In my experience power line adapters only come with 100mbps network ports so that's the limiting factor