Powerline with WiFi

Takmon

Biggus_Dickus said:

Takmon said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Nebulous2 said:

Hi folks - we’re moving to an old house with thick walls. I’m going to be setting up a turbo for my bike in the garage and need WiFi. The signal in the garage is poor to non-existent. It looks like a Powerline system would be best, I’d prefer one with WiFi and there are limited sockets so passthrough would also be good. Any suggestions? 

I’m going up this weekend and intend checking to ensure the garage is on the same ring as the socket where the router lives, which I understand is needed. 

Not necessarily;...I have powerline adaptors (TP-Link) communicating quite happily across different ring main circuitry.

I have an almost new consumer unit and they run perfectly,...fast and very stable.,...and they worked equally well on the old style ‘fused’ consumer unit.

I have seen posts where people have reported problems, but purely on a personal level I haven’t encountered any.

P.S. you may find this article useful.

https://homenetworkgeek.com/do-powerline-adapters-need-to-be-on-the-same-circuit/#Do_Powerline_Adapters_Work_on_Different_Ring_Circuits

I was going to say that powerline adapters certainly aren't fast and your post showing the results of your testing is very slow considering that my network with Ethernet cables is 12 times faster than your best result. Powerline adaptors should always be a last resort, even a test over Wi-Fi gave results that are over 7 times faster.

Powerline adaptors may be the last resort for you but they certainly aren’t for me. It really depends on individual circumstance and requirements.

Wi-Fi in my house is fine if I’m using my laptop in my front room where my router is situated (consistent 108Mbps download) but it’s very ropey in most other parts of my house. If Wi-Fi was adequate throughout my house I certainly wouldn’t use powerline adaptors or dedicated point to point Ethernet cabling. Wi-Fi is superb and ideally would be my weapon of choice but Wi-Fi has its limitations,..certainly in my house.

I can get my powerline adaptors running 73Mbps download and that’s in quite a remote part of my house where the Wi-Fi can be down to a very iffy 20Mbps;.. so 73Mbps via powerline adaptors is not particularly slow in terms of my Virgin fibre broadband absolute maximum download speed which is 110Mbps.

If your broad band is delivering a blistering 876Mbps! download that’s great for you but that’s a speed which is of little additional value to me and it’s also a speed that I have no desire to pay for!

Powerline adaptors work perfectly for my needs;...discrete, cheap, very stable and fast enough for a remote PC and several Smart TV’s running Netflix and all that gubbins.

That being said, Powerline adaptors aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I fully appreciate they are anathema to some people. However, as in all things it’s “horses for courses”

What kind of router do you have? If your using a router supplied by an ISP then you will be able to get much better coverage by changing to a decent one. 

My broadband certainly doesn't run at that kind of speed; I'm talking about the network speed and measured this by transferring files from one device to another. Running a length of Ethernet cable provides a much faster speed and is also cheaper than using powerline adaptors, you could also use this to put a wireless access point at the other end of the cable to get good Wi-Fi speeds in other parts of your house. 

Powerline adaptors may be good for you but they definitely shouldn't be described as fast. Ethernet is much faster and also cheaper, Wi-Fi offers more flexibility because so many devices require wireless internet connections these days but is more expensive than Ethernet. Powerlines adaptors are slow and not cheap so the worst of both worlds really so that's why i would say they are a last resort. But I've just thought if you rent your house then fitting fixed cables such as Ethernet is probably not worthwhile (or even allowed) so they are a good compromise in that situation. 

fred246

I own my house. Fitting fixed cables isn't worthwhile because powerline adapters work so well.

Biggus_Dickus

Takmon said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Takmon said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Nebulous2 said:

Hi folks - we’re moving to an old house with thick walls. I’m going to be setting up a turbo for my bike in the garage and need WiFi. The signal in the garage is poor to non-existent. It looks like a Powerline system would be best, I’d prefer one with WiFi and there are limited sockets so passthrough would also be good. Any suggestions? 

I’m going up this weekend and intend checking to ensure the garage is on the same ring as the socket where the router lives, which I understand is needed. 

Not necessarily;...I have powerline adaptors (TP-Link) communicating quite happily across different ring main circuitry.

I have an almost new consumer unit and they run perfectly,...fast and very stable.,...and they worked equally well on the old style ‘fused’ consumer unit.

I have seen posts where people have reported problems, but purely on a personal level I haven’t encountered any.

P.S. you may find this article useful.

https://homenetworkgeek.com/do-powerline-adapters-need-to-be-on-the-same-circuit/#Do_Powerline_Adapters_Work_on_Different_Ring_Circuits

I was going to say that powerline adapters certainly aren't fast and your post showing the results of your testing is very slow considering that my network with Ethernet cables is 12 times faster than your best result. Powerline adaptors should always be a last resort, even a test over Wi-Fi gave results that are over 7 times faster.

Powerline adaptors may be the last resort for you but they certainly aren’t for me. It really depends on individual circumstance and requirements.

Wi-Fi in my house is fine if I’m using my laptop in my front room where my router is situated (consistent 108Mbps download) but it’s very ropey in most other parts of my house. If Wi-Fi was adequate throughout my house I certainly wouldn’t use powerline adaptors or dedicated point to point Ethernet cabling. Wi-Fi is superb and ideally would be my weapon of choice but Wi-Fi has its limitations,..certainly in my house.

I can get my powerline adaptors running 73Mbps download and that’s in quite a remote part of my house where the Wi-Fi can be down to a very iffy 20Mbps;.. so 73Mbps via powerline adaptors is not particularly slow in terms of my Virgin fibre broadband absolute maximum download speed which is 110Mbps.

If your broad band is delivering a blistering 876Mbps! download that’s great for you but that’s a speed which is of little additional value to me and it’s also a speed that I have no desire to pay for!

Powerline adaptors work perfectly for my needs;...discrete, cheap, very stable and fast enough for a remote PC and several Smart TV’s running Netflix and all that gubbins.

That being said, Powerline adaptors aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I fully appreciate they are anathema to some people. However, as in all things it’s “horses for courses”

What kind of router do you have? If your using a router supplied by an ISP then you will be able to get much better coverage by changing to a decent one. 

My broadband certainly doesn't run at that kind of speed; I'm talking about the network speed and measured this by transferring files from one device to another. Running a length of Ethernet cable provides a much faster speed and is also cheaper than using powerline adaptors, you could also use this to put a wireless access point at the other end of the cable to get good Wi-Fi speeds in other parts of your house. 

Powerline adaptors may be good for you but they definitely shouldn't be described as fast. Ethernet is much faster and also cheaper, Wi-Fi offers more flexibility because so many devices require wireless internet connections these days but is more expensive than Ethernet. Powerlines adaptors are slow and not cheap so the worst of both worlds really so that's why i would say they are a last resort. But I've just thought if you rent your house then fitting fixed cables such as Ethernet is probably not worthwhile (or even allowed) so they are a good compromise in that situation. 

We appear to talking at cross purposes on the subject of data transfer, so best if you stick with your blisteringly fast Ethernet cabled network and I’ll stick with my slow-coach adaptors.

I’m not overly averse to cable-run’s of any type,...but my wife most certainly is these days, and she'd probably stab me through the eye if I even mentioned it. 

P.S. my router is a Virgin Superhub-3 and I do own my house,..all 100% of it.

 

Takmon

Biggus_Dickus said:

Takmon said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Takmon said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Nebulous2 said:

Hi folks - we’re moving to an old house with thick walls. I’m going to be setting up a turbo for my bike in the garage and need WiFi. The signal in the garage is poor to non-existent. It looks like a Powerline system would be best, I’d prefer one with WiFi and there are limited sockets so passthrough would also be good. Any suggestions? 

I’m going up this weekend and intend checking to ensure the garage is on the same ring as the socket where the router lives, which I understand is needed. 

Not necessarily;...I have powerline adaptors (TP-Link) communicating quite happily across different ring main circuitry.

I have an almost new consumer unit and they run perfectly,...fast and very stable.,...and they worked equally well on the old style ‘fused’ consumer unit.

I have seen posts where people have reported problems, but purely on a personal level I haven’t encountered any.

P.S. you may find this article useful.

https://homenetworkgeek.com/do-powerline-adapters-need-to-be-on-the-same-circuit/#Do_Powerline_Adapters_Work_on_Different_Ring_Circuits

I was going to say that powerline adapters certainly aren't fast and your post showing the results of your testing is very slow considering that my network with Ethernet cables is 12 times faster than your best result. Powerline adaptors should always be a last resort, even a test over Wi-Fi gave results that are over 7 times faster.

Powerline adaptors may be the last resort for you but they certainly aren’t for me. It really depends on individual circumstance and requirements.

Wi-Fi in my house is fine if I’m using my laptop in my front room where my router is situated (consistent 108Mbps download) but it’s very ropey in most other parts of my house. If Wi-Fi was adequate throughout my house I certainly wouldn’t use powerline adaptors or dedicated point to point Ethernet cabling. Wi-Fi is superb and ideally would be my weapon of choice but Wi-Fi has its limitations,..certainly in my house.

I can get my powerline adaptors running 73Mbps download and that’s in quite a remote part of my house where the Wi-Fi can be down to a very iffy 20Mbps;.. so 73Mbps via powerline adaptors is not particularly slow in terms of my Virgin fibre broadband absolute maximum download speed which is 110Mbps.

If your broad band is delivering a blistering 876Mbps! download that’s great for you but that’s a speed which is of little additional value to me and it’s also a speed that I have no desire to pay for!

Powerline adaptors work perfectly for my needs;...discrete, cheap, very stable and fast enough for a remote PC and several Smart TV’s running Netflix and all that gubbins.

That being said, Powerline adaptors aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I fully appreciate they are anathema to some people. However, as in all things it’s “horses for courses”

What kind of router do you have? If your using a router supplied by an ISP then you will be able to get much better coverage by changing to a decent one. 

My broadband certainly doesn't run at that kind of speed; I'm talking about the network speed and measured this by transferring files from one device to another. Running a length of Ethernet cable provides a much faster speed and is also cheaper than using powerline adaptors, you could also use this to put a wireless access point at the other end of the cable to get good Wi-Fi speeds in other parts of your house. 

Powerline adaptors may be good for you but they definitely shouldn't be described as fast. Ethernet is much faster and also cheaper, Wi-Fi offers more flexibility because so many devices require wireless internet connections these days but is more expensive than Ethernet. Powerlines adaptors are slow and not cheap so the worst of both worlds really so that's why i would say they are a last resort. But I've just thought if you rent your house then fitting fixed cables such as Ethernet is probably not worthwhile (or even allowed) so they are a good compromise in that situation. 

We appear to talking at cross purposes on the subject of data transfer, so best if you stick with your blisteringly fast Ethernet cabled network and I’ll stick with my slow-coach adaptors.

I’m not overly averse to cable-run’s of any type,...but my wife most certainly is these days, and she'd probably stab me through the eye if I even mentioned it. 

P.S. my router is a Virgin Superhub-3 and I do own my house,..all 100% of it.

 

So you could definitely see a good improvement if you have a look at the best performing routers for Wi-Fi and get one of those instead and is worth it if you don't want to run cables. But if you own your house and plan to live there for a while i still think running ethernet cables is worth it. 

But just to clarify I'm on about fitting them in the walls/floors/roof and out of sight and not just tacked onto the wall like some people's reactions seem like I'm suggesting

fred246

Just out of interest. There are a few places in my house where I have powerline adapters with 3 ports. If you have an ethernet socket in a room with multiple devices what adapters do you use? I have used 4 port switches and they aren't very neat.

Takmon

fred246 said:

Just out of interest. There are a few places in my house where I have powerline adapters with 3 ports. If you have an ethernet socket in a room with multiple devices what adapters do you use? I have used 4 port switches and they aren't very neat.

Well a powerline adaptor you can see with three ethernet cables coming out of it isn't ever going to be any neater than 1 ethernet cable going to a switch that can be placed out of sight like in a TV stand with the wires routed neatly in the stand to each device. 
But anything can be made neat enough if you route the cables as out of sight as possible.

Nebulous2

Just an update on this.  Currys were terrible. I ordered the kit on the 28th of November, with them saying delivery in 4 working days. It eventually arrived on the 16th of December. 

Anyway - the house is 18th century, with thick stone walls. It has two extensions at the back. The phone line comes into the extension with the kitchen, with the router in the kitchen. The garage is in the other extension and the signal was totally dead before. The house has a strong signal in the end near the kitchen. The other end has a variable signal, most of my equipment works, but my wife has a Samsung tablet and it cannot pick up a signal more often than not. I set the powerline up took the wifi adaptor through to the spare room at the other end to try it and it worked. My wife had a strong signal on her tablet and was happy with it. We left it running last night, the signal was much better in our bedroom above the extender and then today I went to setup zwift in the garage and decided to try it without moving it down into the garage. It worked well. 

So it is performing much better than expected. One extender in the middle floor has strengthened the signal through the whole other end of the house. It is giving a strong signal, and is enough for our needs both a floor above and one below it in the garage. So looking better than anything I expected at this point. 

fred246

All you want at the end of the day is something that works. I transfer my data over a network of super thick solid copper cables that are already laid in the house. The 'ethernet police' prefer their flimsy little thin ethernet cables. The only problem with powerline adapters is that you have to read the instructions and understand what's going on. Some people just seem to hope they will work without doing that. They won't.

Mickey666

Well, to be fair, the size of the cable is immaterial when it comes to LVDS data, plus ‘flimsy’ Ethernet cables don’t carry noise-laden interfering AC mains voltages.  There’s no doubt that powerline devices will work up to a point but there’s also no doubt that separate Ethernet cabling is the technology of choice for pretty much every professional network installation in the world and you’d be hard pressed to find any serious IT systems using anything as crude and unreliable as powerline technology.
The real shame is that cheap, reliable and fast Ethernet cabling is not being routinely installed in every new build across the country because it would cost pennies.  But the building industry remains in the dark ages as far as technology is concerned so most homes are incapable of taking advantage of such things and is effectively forced to fall back on range-limited wifi and clunky powerline networking.
Still, in a country that is generally behind the rest of the world when it comes to access to fast broadband services perhaps it doesn’t really matter very much.  Sad though.