Question Best solution for 3 Powerline adapters for rooms upstairs?

Rodion15

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Sep 11, 2011
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I have some doubts and would be very grateful to get any expert advice:

I live in a relatively small 2-storey house in London. I’d like to plug a Powerline adapter (or more if at all possible, this is my main doubt) to my router downstairs and then 3 extenders to the 3 rooms upstairs. The rooms are right above, one-room-after-the-other, no distance between them.

My concern is:
If I just use an adapter downstairs and 3 paired extenders for the 3 rooms upstairs, the bandwidth will be split in three, which I don’t like.

Would it be possible to get two (or three) adapters connected to different Ethernet ports on the router on different wall AC outlets, each connected to corresponding extenders upstairs?. What’s the best way to do this?

I would connect to WIFI or Ethernet upstairs. So I’d get the WIFI+Ethernet extenders with AC passthrough.

This is my hardware:
Virgin Media Hub 3.0 router with a 200Mbps (download) broadband ISP contract (Fiber broadband). This a newest router with Virgin Media, I heard it’s their flagship router.

I’m thinking of getting:
TL-WPA8630P Powerline KIT
AV1300 Gigabit Passthrough Powerline ac Wi-Fi Kit



Regards
Antonio
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
If I just use an adapter downstairs and 3 paired extenders for the 3 rooms upstairs, the bandwidth will be split in three, which I don’t like.
Thats mostly not the way it works.

For instance...
If you have 100mbps download from your ISP, that does not mean that each of the 3 connected systems can only get 66mbps.
If only one were actually doing something, it would get the whole relevant bandwidth.

No different than routers and switches. The powerline is just a substitute for an ethernet cable.

Overall, you have 200mbps when talking to the outside world. It would be "split", only if all systems in the house were actively downloading. And that happens no matter what type of connection you have in the house. ALL ethernet, WiFi, powerline, whatever.

But...all systems attempting to max out the connection at the same time is rare.
ex. If everyone were trying to download a large Linux ISO, all from very fast servers, at the same time.


Powerline is vastly superior to any WiFi concept.
 
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Wacabletech06

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Powerline adapters are a try and see thing, they depend on a lot of things, like how good the electrical wiring, is, how was it wired, how far the run is, etc... These things cannot be guessed at on the forum, so you pretty much have to try and see.

In a 2 story house, I would recommend a modern wifi mesh network instead anyway, I have never really see power line adapters function great. Just good enough. I am not sure what products you have available in london, but a quick search engine for wifi mesh network comparison should set you straight on getting the research done. I use googles for a few years now , and it pushes literally through ALL my house appliances and my water heater, and quite well I might add. These are things that kill wifi in houses, any metal that goes to ground, washer, dryer, refrigerator, stove, dish washer, hot water, heater, furnace, etc.. I push it through all of them [not over or around but through] these devices, which as an ISP employee who has to try and move things to go over or around these every day, that is utterly amazing what it does in my house. Assuming your modem is down stairs, I would put the first one at the modem, next right above it, then any additional ones across the top floor, should cover the whole house this way easily. I pay for 100 Mbps and I can get 100 Mbps over googles mesh across my whole house. I hear they cap out at 150-200 but never paid for more to test that.
 

Rodion15

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Sep 11, 2011
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Thats mostly not the way it works.

For instance...
If you have 100mbps download from your ISP, that does not mean that each of the 3 connected systems can only get 66mbps.
If only one were actually doing something, it would get the whole relevant bandwidth.

No different than routers and switches. The powerline is just a substitute for an ethernet cable.

Overall, you have 200mbps when talking to the outside world. It would be "split", only if all systems in the house were actively downloading. And that happens no matter what type of connection you have in the house. ALL ethernet, WiFi, powerline, whatever.

But...all systems attempting to max out the connection at the same time is rare.
ex. If everyone were trying to download a large Linux ISO, all from very fast servers, at the same time.


Powerline is vastly superior to any WiFi concept.
Great answer USAFRet, thanks for clarifying that :)
 

Rodion15

Distinguished
Sep 11, 2011
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19,015
Powerline adapters are a try and see thing, they depend on a lot of things, like how good the electrical wiring, is, how was it wired, how far the run is, etc... These things cannot be guessed at on the forum, so you pretty much have to try and see.

In a 2 story house, I would recommend a modern wifi mesh network instead anyway, I have never really see power line adapters function great. Just good enough. I am not sure what products you have available in london, but a quick search engine for wifi mesh network comparison should set you straight on getting the research done. I use googles for a few years now , and it pushes literally through ALL my house appliances and my water heater, and quite well I might add. These are things that kill wifi in houses, any metal that goes to ground, washer, dryer, refrigerator, stove, dish washer, hot water, heater, furnace, etc.. I push it through all of them [not over or around but through] these devices, which as an ISP employee who has to try and move things to go over or around these every day, that is utterly amazing what it does in my house. Assuming your modem is down stairs, I would put the first one at the modem, next right above it, then any additional ones across the top floor, should cover the whole house this way easily. I pay for 100 Mbps and I can get 100 Mbps over googles mesh across my whole house. I hear they cap out at 150-200 but never paid for more to test that.

Thanks for your answer. I'll have a shot with powerline, I'd rather use an RJ45 cable for my desktops upstairs.
 
Mar 20, 2021
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I've recently installed powerline adapters & connected one by ethernet cable to tp link wifi extender as a wired access point, only snag is the extender doesn't prompt a password anymore, any idea why & how I add one?