Extending signal around the house. powerline adapter?

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panda123

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#195642 27-Apr-2016 23:20

So current situation is that I have a wireless modem upstairs in my house but our floor is concrete so it's hard to get a food signal downstairs. Ive tried placing a wifi extender downstairs to extend the signal but that isnt working too well. Would my next best thing be to have a Powerline network adapter connected to my modem upstairs then place another Powerline network adapter downstairs to where I want it so I can connect my device via ethernet cable or wifi through the adapter? How reliable would the ethernet or wifi be through the adapter and what adapters should I be looking at getting (reliable and good performance)?

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#1543144 28-Apr-2016 01:22

We have a similar situation at my parents' house, although their floor is wooden - the signal is very weak in one end of the ground floor. I got them a Netcomm power line kit, where the remote unit has both Ethernet connectivity and broadcasts a wireless signal. It works great. The wireless network it puts out covers the area required and the speed is as good as that from the main modem.

You'll want to make sure you're not plugging in via power boards - direct into the socket is best. Our base unit has a piggy-back socket so you can still use the power point it's plugged into. I was worried ours wouldn't work because the base is plugged into the 1980's extension and the remote unit into the original 1970's part of the house, but it was basically plug and play. My only concern is that sometimes the remote unit feels pretty warm, which I am a bit paranoid about, so we unplug it when not in use.

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sqishy

470 posts

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#1544678 30-Apr-2016 22:52

If you can find a way to run an Ethernet cable down then put in another modem with lan/wireless in bridge mode.

Look outside for where TV aerials sometimes run, or inside where the plumbing gets through? Some wardrobes have access through the brick for power etc.

I have never liked the power line adapters

Jase2985

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#1544699 1-May-2016 07:31

sqishy:

If you can find a way to run an Ethernet cable down then put in another modem with lan/wireless in bridge mode.

why do you need bridge mode?

sqishy

470 posts

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#1544701 1-May-2016 07:41

Hi thats just a term to turn a normal router or modem into just another wireless access point. Normally if you need wireless, otherwise buy a cheap switch for wired.

Jase2985

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#1544703 1-May-2016 07:52

"An access point connects to your home network with an Ethernet cable. To avoid confusion, resist the urge to call this bridging. While an access point might appear to bridge the connection between wireless devices and a network, it’s not connecting separate networks."

Most would use the term access point

Jase2985

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#1544704 1-May-2016 07:55

there is this way: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/reuse-an-old-router-to-bridge-devices-to-your-wireless-network/

but very few people do it like this.

Linuxluver

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#1544707 1-May-2016 08:35

panda123:

So current situation is that I have a wireless modem upstairs in my house but our floor is concrete so it's hard to get a food signal downstairs. Ive tried placing a wifi extender downstairs to extend the signal but that isnt working too well. Would my next best thing be to have a Powerline network adapter connected to my modem upstairs then place another Powerline network adapter downstairs to where I want it so I can connect my device via ethernet cable or wifi through the adapter? How reliable would the ethernet or wifi be through the adapter and what adapters should I be looking at getting (reliable and good performance)?

I tried powerline adapters recently.

Top speed I could see was about 70mbps. But they were often down around 15mbps.......Maybe that's good enough

My wifi speed across the same distance was 144mbps (on my old ASUS RT-N66U router). So I unplugged the powerline adapters, put them in a drawer and chalked them up to experience.

I'd see if you can get an 802.11ac wifi extender.

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pmonro

14 posts

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#1544720 1-May-2016 08:59

I use a USB RJ45 extension adaptor

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-RJ45-Extension-adapter-Cat5-Cat5e-Cat6-Cable-LAN-Adapter-Extender-Set-/401049455188?hash=item5d60690a54:g:G1IAAOSwK7FWh3u0

This uses ethernet cable with the wifi reciever at the end of the cable so that the PC wireless range is extended.

One might ask why not just use just the ethernet cable but the practicality is that it may be difficult to do so. This method allows the cable to be run closer to the modem with the difficult last bit by wifi.

I have also used this between buildings up to 50m

josephhinvest

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#1544728 1-May-2016 09:38

Copied and pasted from a previous thread.

I bought a Netcomm NP508, a Powerline extender that has two Ethernet ports and also creates a wifi network. I'm actually really impressed with how well it works. I've not tried any optimising and it makes a connection of about 200Mbps. The connection is completely stable and the initial setup was essentially zero, plug in device, connect to router, plug in other device and a small config of the wifi and done.

Still using these and they are still working well. Seems like it does depend on individual houses by in my case it provides a solid and fast-enough connection. Recommended!

Just checked connection speed...

Cheers,
Joseph

Kiwiuk

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#1544750 1-May-2016 10:28

+1 for powerline adapters

I use cheap and cheerful TP Links (AV200's) which I hook up to a Kodi htpc and Intel Stick and have no problems streaming tv shows and movies, better than the crap wi-fi signal I had with the VDSL modem.

richms

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#1544822 1-May-2016 12:44

I got a pair of dlink cheapies to put between the garage and house at the sisters place until we get the proper cables thru.

Power is an extension cord to the garage with the powerline plugged in and a powerstrip to run other stuff in the garage.

Other end of the extension is into a powerstrip with the other powerline bridge, and that goes into an RCD into the wall.

Anyway, it works great when nothing else is plugged in to the garage other than the powerline and the wifi accesspoint. Plug in a wemo, or an LED work lamp, or a laptop charger and the light on the powerline bridge goes cycling between green, and orange, and red and the thruput takes a nosedive. On the wifi in the garage it is 70 megabit down 20 up with nothing else plugged in, put all the other stuff and its more like 10/7 or so, with it very bursty. Not good enough for a couple of IP cameras.

Will be interesting to see how it works once the power is put thru properly with a sub board in the garage etc. I can only see it getting worse.

Richard rich.ms

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#1544854 1-May-2016 13:08

We have the same problem. I bought a NetComm NP508 powerline adapter. It wasn't that flash.

The upload/download speeds seemed to be only slightly better than the WiFi signal we had at that point, plus it was unreliable and eventually stopped working and caused problems with the VDSL router.

I took it out with the intention of giving it one more go but haven't got around to it yet.

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froob

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#1544868 1-May-2016 13:41

richms:

I got a pair of dlink cheapies to put between the garage and house at the sisters place until we get the proper cables thru.

Power is an extension cord to the garage with the powerline plugged in and a powerstrip to run other stuff in the garage.

Other end of the extension is into a powerstrip with the other powerline bridge, and that goes into an RCD into the wall.

Anyway, it works great when nothing else is plugged in to the garage other than the powerline and the wifi accesspoint. Plug in a wemo, or an LED work lamp, or a laptop charger and the light on the powerline bridge goes cycling between green, and orange, and red and the thruput takes a nosedive. On the wifi in the garage it is 70 megabit down 20 up with nothing else plugged in, put all the other stuff and its more like 10/7 or so, with it very bursty. Not good enough for a couple of IP cameras.

Will be interesting to see how it works once the power is put thru properly with a sub board in the garage etc. I can only see it getting worse.

I had good performance with powerline adapters, provided nothing was plugged into the adjacent socket. Otherwise, I saw the same issues as above.

If you do need to plug something else in next to the powerline adapter (e.g. a wireless AP), the way to solve the issue seems to be to get one of the adapters with a "pass-through" socket on it, or use a multi-board that has a noise filter built-in. Both of those solved the issue for me, but you're mileage may vary.

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raytaylor

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#1545021 1-May-2016 20:41

TP-Link makes a good kit - one unit is a simple LAN<>Powerline bridge.

The other unit is a Powerline+Wifi+Dual LAN bridge all in one.

You will get varied results with powerline - in most houses they work well. However you will find that the 500mbit ones only give a speed advantage when the units are close together (line distance)

But over longer distances the 200mbit ones are fine.

If you have a surge protector or surge protecting 4-way multiplier near either unit, you will find the surge protector tries to suppress the signal.

So its best if you can plug them directly into a wall outlet, or use a Triangular double multiplier plug (here)

If cost is a concern then check with your power company if your power supply is dual or 3-phase (not very common)

If you only have single phase power, then go ahead and get the TP-Link units I recommend. You will find they work very well in almost all houses.

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Technofreak

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#1545024 1-May-2016 20:56

I've been playing this afernoon.

I reinstalled the NetComm powerline kit.

I also set up an old Linksys modem/router as a WiFi extender. Instead of connecting it by a physical cable I used the ethernet connection on the powerline adapter.

The Wifi on the Powerline adapter is faster than on the LinkSys by quite a margin, BUT, the big advantage of the Linksys set up is the change over between both access point on the house is seamless on my tablet at least. Whereas devices don't swap between the NetComm and the main access point very well, they tend to stay on the access point they were hook up to.

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