Power-Line Adapters vs. hard wiring?

[tami]

Curious to get everyone's opinions on going with a power-line adapter or a hardwired line. I can't use wifi in some areas of my home due to interference within the walls so I am looking for a way to work around this.

Pros and cons? For me, the cost to hard wire my home is north of $2k right now so I might be interested in buying 4-5 of these hard wired connections and hoping we solve the problem - but looking to hear from other networkers if this is worth doing.

 

[PliotronX]

No comparison but I've found that power line is more reliable and with more consistent latency compared to wireless. Its great when the only other option is wireless. Depending on the brand and model though, you may experience dropouts and weird issues. I have had no problems at all with TP-Link AV600 pairs and I am really kicking around going to a MiMO pair but I might try netgears.

 

[JackMDS]

When ever you Go Powerline make sure that you can easy return the purchase.

 

[Cee3PeeOh]

I have been trying to find out if the power line adapters can group to more than one pair at a time. I've been told multiple adapters will interfere with each other and setting up a wireless network with routers configured as repeaters or buying special WiFi hotspots extending the WiFi signal or combination of adapter to WiFi router would be better. i always thought repeated signals on WiFi decreased bandwith.

 

[skyking]

It does reduce bandwidth.
The best strategy I can put forward is, take another wireless router out and play with it till you get coverage in the difficult area in your home.
Then do what it takes to run a wire out to it.

 

[KentState]

I've used a pair of Netgear adapters over 3 years now and have not had any big issues. The only challenge is that they are limited on bandwidth so you can' expect to stream a ton of content at a time. For example, a 30MB/sec Blu-ray rip will have issues, but a smaller 5MB/sec stream is fine. Eventually I will wire my basement to second floor, but in the interim the wireline adapters are fine.

 

[Yakk]

I've found performance really depends on your building wiring. Yeah, test and find out.

In my case having a pcie AC wireless card has less latency than my PowerLine setup. But PowerLine had less latency than a USB wireless plug in.

 

[PliotronX]

When ever you Go Powerline make sure that you can easy return the purchase.

That's a fair assessment; not all adapters are created equal

 

[JackMDS]

That's a fair assessment; not all adapters are created equal

Sure, and Neither are the Cables/Circuits in the wall that suppose the replace the network's standard conforming Ca5e/6.

In matter of fact if one can conceive the Worst conduit for Ethernet signal it would be the cables in the walls.

 

[simas]

how long do you plan to be at that home/house? if you are selling this spring, wiring would probably make no sense. if you are planning to be years not months, just wire it and it would be always way better than anything else...

also, where are you getting the $2k quote from? this is not rocket science and you can definitely do all or most of it yourself... if you need assistance craigslist would give you dozens of responses in an hour for any sort of low voltage wiring gig.. draw sketches of your plans, device where network jacks are going to go , buy bulk cable + connectors (i.e. from monoprice) and just do it. once you wired it, add APs (access points) anywhere desired , either by purchasing real access points or refurbishing any old computer router device in AP mode.

 

[PliotronX]

Sure, and Neither are the Cables/Circuits in the wall that suppose the replace the network's standard conforming Ca5e/6.

In matter of fact if one can conceive the Worst conduit for Ethernet signal it would be the cables in the walls.

It works better for me than sharing the air with 20 access points so the powerlines must have a comfortable margin!

 

[tami]

It does reduce bandwidth.
The best strategy I can put forward is, take another wireless router out and play with it till you get coverage in the difficult area in your home.
Then do what it takes to run a wire out to it.

I literally have this one area that when I walk 2 feet around the corner of my house, the coverage completely drops (in fact, I've put two daisy-chained "wifi systems" next to each other and they cannot talk to each other even though they are very close to each other). I've made videos and sent them to wireless companies and they agree with my assessment that this makes no sense. It's absolutely baffling.

also, where are you getting the $2k quote from? this is not rocket science and you can definitely do all or most of it yourself... if you need assistance craigslist would give you dozens of responses in an hour for any sort of low voltage wiring gig.. draw sketches of your plans, device where network jacks are going to go , buy bulk cable + connectors (i.e. from monoprice) and just do it. once you wired it, add APs (access points) anywhere desired , either by purchasing real access points or refurbishing any old computer router device in AP mode.

My house that I plan to be at for as long as I can is 4k square feet (not all livable area, but just providing for context). There's an unfinished basement with the wiring, rooms I need to wire on the first and second floor, and then an attic. The idea is that they need to wire from the basement to the first floor and separate wires from the attic to the second floor. It's not a tiny job and this girl doesn't know how to run wires through walls to do that.

APs were in the plans already and I have them at home, but I need to wire these specific areas to get over the dry areas where nothing wireless will work -- no matter what I try.

 

[sdifox]

Do you have central vac? You can run wire next to the pipe quite easily with line fish. Also, you could look at moca, similar to powerline except it runs on coax.

 

[MustISO]

If the basement is unfinished and is the entry point / router location then getting cables to the floor above is simple and shouldn't cost much at all. When I had an electrician out they charged about $95 per drop from an unfinished basement to the floor above. For the top floor, run the cables to the attic through a pipe stack or something that goes from the basement to the attic. In our house we have a radon pipe that goes from the basement to the attic and there's a little room on the side of the pipe as it goes from floor to floor to pass a cable.

 

[simas]

Tami,

I think you already know the answer - if you want for this to work , you have to wire it. Wire will always be better than wireless. More recent (and purpose built) wire like CAT5e/CAT6/etc would always be better for carrying network signal than repurposing other use wire (electric for powerline, etc). No way around physics..

Everything else would happy take your money but very unlikely to be right for you..


Now how to do this in a way that is affordable - plan it, don't rush, take time to line up labor (if you want for additional assistance), and don't let anyone tell you that you can not do it yourself.

 

[bbhaag]

My sons have been using Western Digital powerlines for close too 5 years now with no issues at all. Our house has the router on the second floor and I wasn't going too run cable to their main floor bedrooms. Too much of a pita haha.
Anyway, the wd powerlines have been chugging away for years now rock solid reliability and they can max out our fiber connection with some headroom left. I wouldn't do it any other way. It was so easy why dick around for days trying too run cable through walls or hvac ducting when you don't have too.

 

[simas]

"Our house has the router on the second floor and I wasn't going too run cable to their main floor bedrooms. Too much of a pita haha."

YMMV, if spending 40 minutes to cut open drywall and drop a wire is too much pain for you, and you want to use substitute solutions, and it does work for you (over breakers ,etc which powerline had problems with), by all means go for it. There are also people that swear by wifi and declare they would never use anything else, so does it help the OP?

to the original poster, all of these anecdotes mean little - what matters is your house and your environment. and there will be no substitute to actually wiring if you want consistent performance, speed, and no f$cking around with this standard or that standard

 

[bbhaag]

It helps the op by letting them know that people have had great success by using powerline adapters vs dropping in cable. My success with them may be anecdotal but don't mislead people by saying dropping line through a multiple story finished home can be done in 40 minutes.

 

[Elixer]

While the powerline adapters can work for some people, I have seen lots of places where they barely work, with constant dropouts, slow speeds, if at all.
It highly depends on the wiring, age of the place, what else is hooked up to the power outlets, and so on.
In terms of an investment CAT5e/6 is well worth it, and is actually a good selling point for homes.

 

[simas]

"
While the powerline adapters can work for some people, I have seen lots of places where they barely work, with constant dropouts, slow speeds, if at all.
It highly depends on the wiring, age of the place, what else is hooked up to the power outlets, and so on.
"
+1 my experience as well. too many factors, especially regarding wiring, type of breakers, co-location on the same line/breaker or the whole thing does not work. if want it to work without pain, just wire it - one of these 'buy once , cry once' things vs trying to go cheap and accumulate a pool of dead or barely working devices a lot of us (myself included) have..

 

[JackMDS]

Ethernet over PowerLine adapters came to market about 15 years ago (HomePlug v1 Fall 2002).

Their level of availability and amount that are currently sold speaks for itself.

BTW, when it came out there was a lot of "Drama Queening" that Internet would come on PowerLine too and there would be No Need of DSL/Cabe/Fiber, etc.. Yeah, ""That happened too"".