Gigabit Switch and 200Mbps Powerline Adapter

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Glixion

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Oct 16, 2013
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Hi everyone,
My ISP just increased my 80Mbps download/upload to a 1000Mbps (gigabit connection (Yay!)). I am soon to buy a 802.11ac router. I have some 200Mbps ethernet powerline adapters that have a 10/100 fast ethernet port on them. I was wondering if I could buy a 10/100/1000 switch and attach it to my powerline adapter(s) and receive 1gigabit speeds that way, or would I be stuck with a max of 200Mbps speeds?
This is the powerline adapter: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704164

Would I end up having to buy gigabit powerline adapters and replacing my current one's to receive gigabit speeds? My computer and smart T.V. is far away from the placement of my office computer and router which is why i'm using powerline adapters in the first place.
I will probably be buying the 802.11ac router tomorrow- Netgear Nighthawk 7000 or Asus RT-AC68U, so any help before I possibly waste my money will be greatly appreciated.

Recommendations for getting gigabit speeds across my network are greatly welcome and appreciated.

So I guess my questions are: Will attaching a gigabit switch to my powerline adapters give me gigabit speeds? If not, what do you suggest I do to get the speeds I want/need to my PC and smart T.V. that isn't close enough to my router. (I will not use a range extender, can't stand them). Which 802.11ac router should I pick? What are your successes with gigabit speeds if you have them? (Speedtest.net download/upload speeds). I'm using cat5e cables, should I upgrade to cat6e/cat7 cables, or is there little to no difference in speeds using them?
 
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abailey
My COAX is in the wall and it is not used for anything. Sadly, with this new product, it cannot share the COAX line with anything else like a TV signal. MOCA adapters can, but once again, you won't get much better than 100Mbit/s with MOCA. As far as Gigabit goes, you will not see any difference between CAT5e, CAT6, or CAT7. Your best answer is to try to find a way to run a CAT5e cable to your PC.
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The adapters themselves only have a 100/100 port so that guarantees you will never get more than 100Mbps out of them even under ideal circumstances.

If you want a chance to achieve full 1Gbps, you will need a wired connection since even the best wireless adapters and routers can only achieve about half the sticker speed.
 
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Did your ISP up your speed to 100Mbit or actually 1000Mbits (Gigabit). If they really upped it to Gigabit download speed, then the only thing that can run close to that speed is a Cat5 Ethernet cable (or fiber optics). Wireless and Powerline adapters can't get anywhere close to that speed.
The wireless AC routers your are looking at can do 1300Mbit/s max link rate. That is link rate, not throughput. Throughput is usually about 70% of that speed (for the newer routers) so now we are at 910Mbit/s. Wireless throughput is listed as total bandwidth but it is half duplex. So to compare it to wired Ethernet speeds you have to cut it in half. So your talking about 455Mbit/s. So if you get a perfect signal to your computer you could get a max throughput of 455Mbit/s wireless.
Ok powerline works the same way. The best powerline out right now is 600Mbit/s. That is link speed. Throughput on a powerline is usually only 50% of link speed. So 300Mbit/s. Then it is also half duplex, like wireless. So you have to cut that speed in half, so your looking at 150Mbit/s max, under perfect conditions. I have actually never heard of anyone actually getting that good of speed with powerline. The best I have heard of is 125Mbit/s. Either way it is a long way from Gigabit.
All that to say if you want to utilize a full Gigabit connection you need to use Cat5e or better cable.
 
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There are powerline ethernet adapters that have gigabit ports to them. Like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704139
Even if I used this, would I still not obtain 500Mbps or close to 300+ Mbps speeds? Yes, my MOBO does support 1gig speeds, it's a M5A99FX Pro R2.0 (Asus).
That is true that most servers will not have 1Gb speeds, but i'm a hardcore gamer and latency is an issue at the moment for me. Buffer times when trying to watch Netflix movies on my smart t.v. is also very frustrating.
 
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If I bought an 802.11ac router, do you think I'd at least recieve 400+ Mbps using a powerline adapter like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704139 ? What about wireless connection speeds? (Not a huge fan of wireless since I'm a gamer and wireless isn't too steady as far as ping is concerned imo.
 
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Yes, I have LUS Fiber and they did infact boost customers to 1Gbps speeds. Well, that opened my eyes a lot. And your right about the powerline adapter connection (I'm only getting 100Mbps of the 200 listed). Running speedtest.net I get around 30-35 download and 25-30 upload. Basicly, the only way to obtain true gig speeds is to be wired directly to a gigabit router/modem using a cat5e or better cable? Well...that is truely hurtful in my journey to obtain better connection speeds. My gaming rig is too far away from the router...I'd have to run a 50-75' cat5e+ cable to be directly wired, and that would look so ugly running along the walls. My router is downstairs and I'm upstairs, I maybe could drill a hole in the ceiling downstairs (above it is the attic) and then run the rest of the cord to my room to be wired directly, but I was honestly trying to avoid that.

 
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Well, my powerline adapter question has been answered, but I do have more: What do you suggest I do to get the speeds I want/need to my PC and smart T.V. that isn't close enough to my router. (I will not use a range extender, can't stand them). Which 802.11ac router should I pick? What are your successes with gigabit speeds if you have them? (Speedtest.net download/upload speeds). I'm using cat5e cables, should I upgrade to cat6e/cat7 cables, or is there little to no difference in speeds using them?

If I click a 'Pick as a solution' by your post, will this thread be closed? If so, I'll just click it after all my remaining questions are answered. Thank you guys for answering my questions so quickly.
 
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The only coax cables I have are the ones that run to my T.V. boxes around the house. None of these coax lines run from where my router is to where my custom pc is. Hope that product does what it says. Your not subconcious of the fact you will have a big coax cable running along your floor/wall etc.? Or is your coax going through your wall or something? My internet provider is also my T.V. provider, so can I use the coax in my room for ethernet somehow? It flows from the wall to my T.V. box.
 
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My COAX is in the wall and it is not used for anything. Sadly, with this new product, it cannot share the COAX line with anything else like a TV signal. MOCA adapters can, but once again, you won't get much better than 100Mbit/s with MOCA. As far as Gigabit goes, you will not see any difference between CAT5e, CAT6, or CAT7. Your best answer is to try to find a way to run a CAT5e cable to your PC.
 
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Solution
Thought I could click multiple 'Pick as solutions' considering all of you who answered me answered my questions without delay. Well, I guess I'll start thinking of a way to run my cable directly to my router. Thank you all for your help. If you don't mind, can you please leave this thread open until tomorrow or Tuesday as I may think of more questions to ask overnight. I really really appreciate the helpful answers.
Oh...my smart t.v. is only receiving around 5mbps download/upload over the powerline and my pc is receiving 30down/up. They're both using cat5e. Why the huge difference in speeds?
 
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I've learned a lot today. Powerline isn't as great as I thought it was. DIRECTLY wired is the only way to go for t.v. streaming and gaming. Even with an 802.11ac router, I'll obtain at max around 300-450Mbps wirelessly (correct or no?). Coax may become something worth trying in the future.
Will I be getting significantly better connection speeds from my powerline adapter after upgrading the router? If not, I guess I'll try selling them on ebay along with a range extender that didn't do much for my connection. Should I just use the 5GHz wireless for my pc and smart t.v. and 2.4ghz for phones/printer etc? Would buying a gigabit range extender and plugging my gaming pc via ethernet be better or the same as connecting via powerline adapter?

 
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If you have a good signal, and a device that can receive 802.11ac signals, then you may be able to get as high as 450Mbit/s. Now wireless is a shared medium, so that assumes just one device at a time on your wireless. If you have multiple devices they will share bandwidth (if they are on the same frequency and channel, 2.5 or 5Ghz).
Upgrading your router will not have an effect on your powerline adapters. They are the weakest link in your wired speed chain. Weaker than your current router.
I would not use a range extender. That is usually the last option to turn to for people to get wireless service. Extenders are slow and they add latency to the connection.
You have not said what all devices you have but of your TV and computer, only your computer will benifit from faster speeds.
For video examples: Netflix best quality streams at 5Mbit/s. Hulu Plus at 3.2Mbit/s and Vudu at 9Mbit/s. Even on your local LAN if you had a media server, it would most likely not need more than 20Mbit/s speeds.
So its mainly your PC if you do alot of downloading or uploading of files will you see a difference with faster speeds.
 
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Well, I'm going to be getting rid of my powerline ethernet adapters as they are pretty useless now that I've been given the news about them only maxing at 125Mbps using the best available atm.
I watch movies on netflix a lot (sometimes netflix is streaming on two devices at one time). While streaming 1 or 2 movies, games that require little to no latency like: Titanfall, Diablo3, Tera, CombatArms, BF4, etc etc. may also be running. With that being said, it seems I would need a better router anyway as my current router: medialink (which I have NEVER heard of until I received that one) http://www.medialinkproducts.com/wirelessRouter.php (802.11n version) cannot really handle the load, not to mention there is no bandwidth control, port forwarding is useless in the config page, and QoS isn't of 'Quality'. With that being said, I will no doubt be running a long ugly cat5e cable from my router WAYYY to my PC upstairs and smart t.v. in another room. UNLESS there is another way? Do you think I can get my ISP to run another 1 or 2 ethernet port/box or whatever from the box currently in place to 2 new locations? Or is there any other workarounds besides running an ugly ethernet cord along the wall? Honestly, running it IN the wall or through the ceiling would be just as bad..
 
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If you want the fastest and most stable connection between your PC and router for downloads and gaming, wired is the best option by a wide margin. For other stuff that can cope with jitter, packet losses and somewhat impredictable bandwidth as long as it still remains good enough on average (like Netflix and Youtube), 11ac/n and powerline are still good enough.
 
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Do you think I can get my ISP to run another 1 or 2 ethernet port/box or whatever from the box currently in place to 2 new locations? Or is there any other workarounds besides running an ugly ethernet cord along the wall? Honestly, running it IN the wall or through the ceiling would be just as bad..
Click to expand...

No. The ISP installer guy will charge a whole lot of money to try to run the wire through or along wall.
All signal needs to come from the main modem/router box. Another 'box' = another connection/account.

My FiOS guy just gave me a free MoCA coax-ethernet adapter. Plug coax in, get ethernet out. Not 1Gbps coming out the ethernet side though.
 
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Well, my smart t.v. is only getting around 5Mbps up/down and I run netflix a lot. I get so many buffers with it that it's driving me crazy.
 
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What is your ethernet speeds topping out at using the MoCA coax-ethernet adapter?
 
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I do not know yet. It is still sitting in the box.
It is this one:
EDIT: oops...not that one. Hang on.

So I expect a max 200Mpbs or so.
My ISP plan is 50/25, so this thing will not max out.

EDIT: Yes, this one, mostly
http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethernet-Adapter-Service-ECB2500C/dp/B008C1JC4O

Mine only has one coax port unlike this one with two.
 
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