Is powerline networking likely to be faster than wifi AC?

[Mark R]

I want to connect a VDSL modem/router, NAS, media streamer box and PC/assorted other networked stuff.

I've currently got it set up with 802.11ac, but can't get throughput much better than 3 MB/s; certainly not enough to stream anything. There are no other 5 G networks in range. In fact, the wifi link is a significant bottleneck for the VDSL bandwidth.

I'm desperate to avoid any additional wiring, as there is no easy way to route any cabling (even drilling through walls).

What are people's experiences with powerline networking? Am I likely to get better performance that wifi?

 

[JackMDS]

May be you'll get may be Not.

You have to try.

If the power lines are in good shape for Powerline over Ethernet might work better than what you get from your questionable WIFI.

That said in General WIFI is better than Power line..

How much your WIFI is if a Dual Band client is in the same room with the Wireless Router?

 

[smitbret]

I want to connect a VDSL modem/router, NAS, media streamer box and PC/assorted other networked stuff.

I've currently got it set up with 802.11ac, but can't get throughput much better than 3 MB/s; certainly not enough to stream anything. There are no other 5 G networks in range. In fact, the wifi link is a significant bottleneck for the VDSL bandwidth.

I'm desperate to avoid any additional wiring, as there is no easy way to route any cabling (even drilling through walls).

What are people's experiences with powerline networking? Am I likely to get better performance that wifi?

It's going to depend on the quality of your wiring vs. the penetration ability of your wireless.

If you have lousy powerline cabling in the house and the walls are paper thin then you'll most likely get MUCH better performance from wireless ac.

If you have a lot of walls and floors to go through and you have a lot of square footage to cover and your electrical wiring was done properly and is in good condition, then powerline will make sure you get good speed in the corners and distant points in the home a lot better than wireless ac will. Because ac is carried on the 5GHz band, it's penetrating abilities are just not very good. 5Mbps seems really low though, unless you are really at the edge of the wireless signal. What is the db rating you are getting at these spots?

 

[PliotronX]

Oh wow, I hadn't looked into the powerline tech in a while as last I knew it was limited to 10Mbps half duplex but it looks like the decent ones average 500Mbps. As for real world use it is more than likely going to outperform even 11ac and just by nature of not being over the air will be more secure. Color me intrigued.

From a review:

For almost a year I've been trying to figure out a way to get a fast and reliable internet connection all the way across the house into my man cave where I have my various gaming devices and PC. I don't own my house so running Cat 6 cable everywhere is out of the question. I tried buying a top of the line router which is a definite improvement over my old router but still didn't get my Wi-Fi signal to the place I wanted/needed it the most. I have a wireless repeater which works great but has the nasty side effect of cutting my bandwidth in half. I currently pay for 50Mbps down 25mbps up ISP package and was getting around 25 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up on average which was a bit frustrating as you can imagine.

I've heard of powerline networking but I never gave it a second thought since I've always heard mixed things about it. Reading into it more I kept seeing how the technology has improved greatly and people with gaming devices were quite happy with their powerline setups. I took the plunge and decided to give this kit a try since I figured I could always return them if they didn't work out for me since they looked remarkably easy to set up.

When I got these set up and did a speed test connection I couldn't believe my eyes. I was getting 60 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up. I had to run the test multiple times to make sure it wasn't a fluke or make sure the signal didn't crap out after a hour or so. Granted I got these tonight and I still have to put the adapters through their paces but I feel like this is the answer I was looking for the entire time. I can't believe how well these things work for me!

I say it's definitely worth a shot but I did see some reviews about intermittent cutouts that might be due to older/marginal lines, just something to watch out for.

 

[ggadrian]

Oh wow, I hadn't looked into the powerline tech in a while as last I knew it was limited to 10Mbps half duplex but it looks like the decent ones average 500Mbps. As for real world use it is more than likely going to outperform even 11ac and just by nature of not being over the air will be more secure. Color me intrigued.

From a review:



I say it's definitely worth a shot but I did see some reviews about intermittent cutouts that might be due to older/marginal lines, just something to watch out for.

I call bullshit on those 500mbps. I have a couple of units and I'm getting 50mbps at best. It really depend too much in the wiring and on whatever else you have plugged in.

Althoug 50mbps might outperform wifi in most situations, wifi AC will be way faster if you are at a reasonable distance.

 

[PliotronX]

I call bullshit on those 500mbps. I have a couple of units and I'm getting 50mbps at best. It really depend too much in the wiring and on whatever else you have plugged in.

Althoug 50mbps might outperform wifi in most situations, wifi AC will be way faster if you are at a reasonable distance.

Just curious since I'm interested in picking up some to try, what model of the A/C adapters are you only seeing 50Mbps with? I see now they say "up to" which is how Wi-Fi should be advertised as well but I have always preferred wired networking so this might do the trick for rentals where I can't run ethernet.

 

[ggadrian]

Just curious since I'm interested in picking up some to try, what model of the A/C adapters are you only seeing 50Mbps with? I see now they say "up to" which is how Wi-Fi should be advertised as well but I have always preferred wired networking so this might do the trick for rentals where I can't run ethernet.

I believe that it's a TP-TL511, the one that is 500mbps with only one port.

And yes, they you state very clear that it's up to X speed, just as wifi, and that it depends heavily on the wiring.

Maybe it works great for you, but in my experience in a best case scenario I get better speeds with 300mbps wifi than I get with 500mbps on fairly new wires.

 

[delonm]

I have several AV500 adapters in my home that mainly support IP Cams. I get throughputs ranging from 70mbs to 160mbs depending on the location. I have been very pleased with their performance thus far. They work much better than wireless for me, in my situation.

As others have stated, quality and configuration of wiring making a big difference so YMMV.

David

 

[PliotronX]

I believe that it's a TP-TL511, the one that is 500mbps with only one port.

And yes, they you state very clear that it's up to X speed, just as wifi, and that it depends heavily on the wiring.

Maybe it works great for you, but in my experience in a best case scenario I get better speeds with 300mbps wifi than I get with 500mbps on fairly new wires.

I see, thank you! I was a little too excited there :biggrin: It really depends on the conditions of the channels and powerline but it's great that there is an option for those of us in crowded Wi-Fi areas.

 

[azazel1024]

Yeah...you realize they were saying 30-60 MegaBITS per second...right? That is roughly 10% yield on the powerline. That stinks. Now, it sounds like the OP has terrible wireless, possibly even worse yield than the powerline in the article, but still...that isn't good.

The BEST I have seen is around 160Mbps on a 600Mbps powerline kit under highly favorable conditions. The average I have seen in most setups is closer to 40-80Mbps for the newer 600Mbps kits.

So, that is better than the wireless the OP has going on, but not exactly great.

For the wireless link, if it is between devices with external antennas I'd say trying to replace the existing external antennas with higher gain ones might be the way to go. Since there are no competing 5GHz networks, it shouldn't be congestion causing it. If the existing router/client are using 3-5dBi antennas switching up to 7-9dBi antennas might be enough to double to triple the current speed. Also relocating even a little might make a big difference.

Nothing like a beam or AC duct work to kill your wireless signal and moving just a few feet might be enough to avoid something like that in your signal path.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, even with so-called Gigabit powerline adapters, you're doing well if the real-world speeds are over 100 Mbps.

 

[Rio Rebel]

This really varies. In my case, I use a "500mbps" powerline to connect across a large house and down one floor, and I get a much more reliable connection than wifi to stream plex movies. Unfortunately, I get nowhere near the expected speeds (about 13mbps) and I can't figure out why - I have even replaced the AFCI circuit breaker with a standard one to increase throughput. In my case, it must be line noise. But if I move to other rooms on the upper floor, I can get around 50-60mbps consistently.

In short, powerline is an option when you are stretching too far for wifi, and/or need consistent throughput for something like video. It is nowhere near as good as an ethernet line, unless you are in pristine conditions.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Oh wow, I hadn't looked into the powerline tech in a while as last I knew it was limited to 10Mbps half duplex but it looks like the decent ones average 500Mbps. As for real world use it is more than likely going to outperform even 11ac and just by nature of not being over the air will be more secure. Color me intrigued.

From a review:



I say it's definitely worth a shot but I did see some reviews about intermittent cutouts that might be due to older/marginal lines, just something to watch out for.

A few points:

1. The 500 Mbps speed quoted is for the entire powerline network, not individual adapters. So if you have 4 adapters, they have up to 500 Mbps of shared bandwidth between them, 8 adapters would still have 500 Mbps of shared bandwidth, etc.
2. Note that many of the 500 Mbps adapters only have 10/100 ports, which limits you to a max connection speed of 100 Mb.
3. I have a set of the TP-Link powerline adapters and in my test, throughput was VERY good. I put adapters on either side of the house and tested throughput to the internet and was getting 55 Mbps, which was very close to maxing my 60 Mbps connection.
4. I used the devices briefly to bridge a DMZ port on my server to a DMZ switch and while it worked, I did notice an occasional drop. I am not 100% sure that it was due to those adapters, however.
5. Finally, the "more secure than wireless" comment is open for debate. Keep in mind that theoretically, your signal goes on the powerlines OUTSIDE of your house as well so they could, in fact, be easier to sniff. Most adapters come with an encryption option because of this, so you definitely should use that.
6. You should not plug these adapters into power strips or a UPS which filters or conditions the line. For mine, I bought power strips from Amazon that did no filtering.

 

[azazel1024]

The Encryption is also a bit suspect and it would DEFFINITELY be open to MitM attacks when initially setting it up. It is probably no more secure than WPS is, which is to say not at all.

I am not terribly worried about powerline network snooping, but it is possible. MoCA has the advantage that you can put a line filter in before the coax exits your coax out to the curb to block or at least severly attenuate your MoCA network (I'd take a wild guess and say the MoCA filters/clamps probably introduce 40-60dB of signal attenuation at the frequencies MoCA networks operate at, which should be enough to make it be "unhearable" outside of your network).

 

[PliotronX]

A few points:

1. The 500 Mbps speed quoted is for the entire powerline network, not individual adapters. So if you have 4 adapters, they have up to 500 Mbps of shared bandwidth between them, 8 adapters would still have 500 Mbps of shared bandwidth, etc.
2. Note that many of the 500 Mbps adapters only have 10/100 ports, which limits you to a max connection speed of 100 Mb.
3. I have a set of the TP-Link powerline adapters and in my test, throughput was VERY good. I put adapters on either side of the house and tested throughput to the internet and was getting 55 Mbps, which was very close to maxing my 60 Mbps connection.
4. I used the devices briefly to bridge a DMZ port on my server to a DMZ switch and while it worked, I did notice an occasional drop. I am not 100% sure that it was due to those adapters, however.
5. Finally, the "more secure than wireless" comment is open for debate. Keep in mind that theoretically, your signal goes on the powerlines OUTSIDE of your house as well so they could, in fact, be easier to sniff. Most adapters come with an encryption option because of this, so you definitely should use that.
6. You should not plug these adapters into power strips or a UPS which filters or conditions the line. For mine, I bought power strips from Amazon that did no filtering.

Cool info, thanks! It still piques my interest because maintaining optimal N-esque performance in an environment filled with AP's and noise sources is a great concept. So it's been established that the throughput figures for PLA are as ficticious as 802.11 but at least they can be directed with a physical circuit.

Regarding security, how many folks are going to be looking for PLA signal versus "wardrivers" sniffing the air? AES encryption would definitely take care of it but nobody would be the wiser unless they were risking electric shock tapping your lines so I'd actually be comfortable without encryption with PLA which might enhance performance and reliability (Wi-Fi tends to be less potent and reliable with encryption as well).

 

[azazel1024]

Depending on attenuation though, you may be able to pick-up PLA several houses down connected to the same residential feeder. This isn't like you'd necessarily have to try to tap in to the mains coming in to your house. In an apartment building where it is all on the same main panel, ANYONE could tap it within the building.

As for speed, no, but are true speeds. The signaling rate sustains 300Mbps on 802.11n 2:2 40MHz. Its true 300Mbps. The problem is, you lose some of error correction (a lot, like 20-30% is error correction overhead depending on exactly standard or low error correction), beacon signals, preambles, CTS/RTS, etc. So what ends up happening is, even on the best of the best, you are losing 30-40% to overhead. Then you have TCP/IP and any layer 7 application overhead which brings net yield in a good environment and a good client and base station down to around 60% of rated spec.

For example, I have an awesome setup and I get around 200Mbps on a 300Mbps 802.11n 2:2 40MHz 5GHz connection (actual payload data for an SMB transfer). The same but 2.4GHz bumps it down to about 185Mbps (I have no conflicting signals, but it could just be better reflection, fewer microwave interferers on 5GHz for me over 2.4GHz).

PLA is also an actual signaling rate of 200/500/600/etc. But you have over head for error correction, TCP/IP, L7, etc, etc. Power line also tends to be a VERY noisy environment. Think of it more like doing 2.4GHz wireless, but with a bunch of microwave ovens with their doors off and running and several 2.4GHz phones all running at the same time. Then you possibly throw in several walls in the way. That is what the PLA environment is typically.

It isn't really ficticious, but it is VERY much YMMV. I do think it is a shame that manufacturers can't come up with a common test scenario for various equipment across an industry an tack that on to spec sheets/advertising.

For example a standard wifi test. It could even be a relatively clean one, but choose a standard client, standard test setup and then report the speed. So if in a clean environment (wireless signal wise) at 15ft your N300 router to the standard client is actually only capable of 160Mbps (2:2 40MHz), report that. If it does 180Mbps, report that and so on. You don't have to report worst case, or even typical case, but an ACTUAL AND REPEATABLE BEST CASE would still be nice. You can't get 300Mbps payload even in a faraday cage environment between the best ever router and best over client. I think it is fine to say its a 300Mbps product, but lets also say what it can realistically do in the best possible case scenario too.