500mbps vs 1000mbps powerline adaptors vs mesh Wifi

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HenryNZ

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# 242473 29-Oct-2018 22:19

I think it is time to upgrade my dated 200mbps power line adaptors (Netcomm NP204). They are ok for Netflix in SD and general use, but I find downloading files is still rather slow.

If my main goal is only to carry the traffic to and from the 100mbps fibre broadband, would a 500-600 mbps power line adaptor with Gigabit port be good enough? or does one need a 1000+ mbps power line adaptor? I guess my question is, at 500-600 mbps, is the bottleneck with the power line adaptor, or is it with the Fibre?

To get my three storey house covered I will probably need 4 power line units (some with Wifi broadcast). Therefore if I can use 500-600 mbps adaptors instead the more expensive 1000+ mbps units to save money, the saving will be quite substantial.

While researching this topic I have come across a lot about mesh Wifi like google wifi and Amplifi. I wonder how they compare in real life to power line adaptors in a place where there are 15 different SSID from various neighbours.. I presume power line would still be a better option in this setting? Besides the mesh wifi setups are probably a bit too expensive for me.

Any suggestions welcome.. Thanks

lokhor

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# 2116557 30-Oct-2018 06:04

Even though they might be rated at 1000Mbps you are very unlikely to actually achieve that speed in reality. I have the TL-WPA7510KIT AV1000 Powerline Kit and it doesn't even achieve 200Mbps, and sits at ~180Mbps most of the time (sometimes it fluctuates to much lower speeds). Fortunately (or unfortunately) I am on VDSL so it makes little difference to me. I would probably recommend looking into mesh WiFi solutions, although I don't have personal experience with them.

Solution Architect @Intergen
All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

andrewNZ

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# 2116562 30-Oct-2018 07:23

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What speed do you currently get, how many power line adapters do you have currently?

My understanding of the power line speed rating is it is the max possible combined speed.

Location: Dunedin

michaelmurfy

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# 2116565 30-Oct-2018 07:42

It sounds like you're in a newer house. Those powerline adapters get wrecked when you've got RCD's in your house (most newer houses). They're simply not that good. Powerline adapters are also all shared in terms of bandwidth and are not full duplex meaning if you've got a bit talking over it then they'll all suffer.

Do yourself a favor and just buy an AmpliFi (https://gowifi.co.nz/manageda/afi-hd.html) - they just work. You'll only end up spending more by going to powerline adapters.

Replace your current router with the AmpliFi router, put the mesh nodes on each floor and you should be set. You can still use a few of your existing Powerline adapters in places you need Ethernet.

gehenna

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# 2116572 30-Oct-2018 08:18

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There's a few recent threads on this sort of topic. Consider powerline a last ditch attempt to get data to a device that you otherwise can't reach with physical cabling or Wi-Fi. For that purpose they're great, but don't run them as your main network infrastructure. You'll be in for a world of hurt.

lokhor

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# 2116580 30-Oct-2018 08:46

For reference I am in a 2 storey house that is ~2 years old and only have the 2 adapters going from the VDSL line upstairs to my PC that is downstairs. I am building a house and putting Ethernet in because Powerline networking and even mesh Wi-Fi are never going to be as good.

Solution Architect @Intergen
All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

Dairyxox

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# 2116586 30-Oct-2018 08:55

I've never tried it myself, but I've seen studies that show powerline adapters can have massive latency spikes.

Like 1000x (latency) what a very average Wifi conneftion will have. Throughput _might_ be better, but things like gaming will be rubbish. This will probably affect TCP throughput due to acknowledgement packets getting delayed.

gehenna

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# 2116590 30-Oct-2018 09:03

lokhor:
because Powerline networking and even mesh Wi-Fi are never going to be as good.

That depends on your requirements. I use wifi for 4k streaming of video and other data to laptops and tvs, and general mobile device internet. Absolutely no issues with wifi for those purposes in my 3 story house.

lokhor

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# 2116593 30-Oct-2018 09:08

gehenna:
lokhor:

because Powerline networking and even mesh Wi-Fi are never going to be as good.

That depends on your requirements. I use wifi for 4k streaming of video and other data to laptops and tvs, and general mobile device internet. Absolutely no issues with wifi for those purposes in my 3 story house.

Agreed, and sometimes you can't easily install ethernet, but ethernet is always going to be more stable, better throughput and lower latency than Wi-Fi just by it's very nature.

Solution Architect @Intergen
All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

gehenna

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# 2116602 30-Oct-2018 09:16

Yeah but the point is your requirements will dictate whether that's an issue or not. What are your requirements?

HenryNZ

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# 2116795 30-Oct-2018 12:58

Thank you for the posts so far.
At the moment I have 100 mbps fibre broadband coming into the house at the garage. The garage is attached to the house but appears to be added on as an afterthought, so there is no easy way to get cable through into the house proper. I have therefore been putting the modem/router that comes with Spark in the garage, and have a 200 mbps powerline adaptor send the traffic to a matching unit under the TV which is basically at the other end of the house. There the Adpator send the traffic to an old modem/wifi router used as a wifi router only. The TV is wired to the router. The Spark modem / router and the old wifi router both broadcast the same SSID so I can use the same SSID throughout the house. For Netflix in standard def it is working ok. At the ground level Internet surfing and email are not a problem, and YouTube is ok as well. However the occasionally big download is slow and also I am obviously not using the full speed of the broadband. Upstairs in the bedroom however the wifi is slower, but probably still ok for most task. The main problem is with the “basement” home office where the signal is pretty bad. To help I put another powerline there and have the office pc wired directly to it. However for some reason it does not seem to perform as well possibly due to the power line configuration. I have not measured the speed but a download of 100 MB file failed repeatedly due to dropped connections when downstairs.

We do not play games at all and all our internet is mainly for Netflix, YouTube, surfing and email. The office computer in the basement needs to access my work via VPN and requires viewing of large image files smoothly, but it only need to do that may be couple of days a week. It is the poor performance in the basement that prompted me to consider an upgrade.

Hard wiring Ethernet cable is not possible. We have asked electrician to have a look and basically this house is built in such a way that there is no ceiling space and the underfloor crawl space only covers half the house. Very unorthodox construction prevents physical wiring. Therefore wifi and powerline are my only options.

As my broadband is only 100 mbps and there is no computer to computer transfer within the home network, I thought anything that can give consistent download speed to make use of the broadband bandwidth throughout the house would be good enough for me

andrewNZ

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# 2117117 30-Oct-2018 21:11

Have you considered wireless point to point for the link.

Location: Dunedin

andrewNZ

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# 2117151 30-Oct-2018 23:51

Or, is there unused coax or phone lines in the walls already?

If there are phone lines run in cat5e that's already very usable.
Regular old phone cable will probably be usable as a VDSL bridge.
Coax (someone is bound to tell me I'm an idiot) was used for networks for years, hell Vodafone are still using it for fake UFB. Might be worth a punt if you're getting desperate.

Location: Dunedin

HenryNZ

51 posts

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# 2117155 31-Oct-2018 00:22

Thanks Andrew for the comments, though not sure what exactly you are referring to... Are you suggesting that I can use the old phone line for ethernet data??

andrewNZ

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# 2117158 31-Oct-2018 00:39

Possibly yes.

Location: Dunedin