Question powerline adapter speed problem

[kayyan]

Hello,

I do not have the chance to connect my home computer directly to the modem. I had been using a wifi adapter for a long time, but when the speed loss in my new house increased over 40%, I looked for another solution. I heard the concept of powerline adapter for the first time and thought I could apply it as far as I understood from what I read and watched. I bought tp-link's tl-pa7017p model device and installed it. The internet at my home has a theoretical speed of 500mbit. However, when I do a speed test, I am currently getting 130mbit speed. I could already get speeds over 250mbit with the wifi adapter. Both adapters are connected directly to the electrical outlet. The power cables of my case and monitor are also plugged into the plug on the powerline adapter through a surge-protected socket. I know that normally it should not be connected to a surge protected socket, but right now I think this should not affect the connection speed because I first plugged the powerline adapter into the electrical outlet and the surge protected socket into the plug on the powerline.

I live in a newly built apartment. Therefore, I thought that there should not be a problem due to electrical installation. Other than that, is there any detail I missed?

 

[thestryker]

With powerline there's a lot that goes into the speeds such as circuit design and what else is on the circuit. If you want to know more about the possible pitfalls: https://dongknows.com/powerline-networking-explained/

What I'd suggest doing if you can is check different outlet combinations and potentially not use the pass through to see if anything changes. Generally speaking for anyone looking for performance you have to have a combination of getting lucky and getting the highest end adapters (AV2000/g.hn). 130mbps doesn't really seem awful for a powerline adapter depending on how far apart they are in terms of wiring and circuits.

MoCA can potentially be an option if the home has been wired for coax.

 

[NedSmelly]

I have TPLink AV2000 power line in a townhouse and get 200Mbps sustained. So you’re not doing too badly there. You’re at the mercy of the design and condition of the wiring in your home.

 

[kayyan]

With powerline there's a lot that goes into the speeds such as circuit design and what else is on the circuit. If you want to know more about the possible pitfalls: https://dongknows.com/powerline-networking-explained/

What I'd suggest doing if you can is check different outlet combinations and potentially not use the pass through to see if anything changes. Generally speaking for anyone looking for performance you have to have a combination of getting lucky and getting the highest end adapters (AV2000/g.hn). 130mbps doesn't really seem awful for a powerline adapter depending on how far apart they are in terms of wiring and circuits.

MoCA can potentially be an option if the home has been wired for coax.

i'll try it, thanks

 

[kayyan]

I have TPLink AV2000 power line in a townhouse and get 200Mbps sustained. So you’re not doing too badly there. You’re at the mercy of the design and condition of the wiring in your home.

paying extra money just to get half the speed of a wifi adapter hurts a little bit. otherwise, it's ok

 

[bill001g]

This is not a unexpected result though. Wifi has much more bandwidth to start with.

Problem is wifi is subject to interference both from devices in side and outside your house so the performance is extremely inconsistent.

It all depends on what you are actually doing with your network.

The ISP likes to pretend that if you pay more money to get faster internet it magically makes things better. Your average person does not even need 100mbps. Things watching 4k netflix only uses 30mbps so you could have 3 people watching different movies at the same time and you still would have extra bandwidth. Having more does not make things run faster or better most application will only use what they need.

The one exception would be large file downloads. It depends on how many hours per month you spend doing that. If you are the kind of guy who is running torrent 24x7 faster internet makes a difference most other people you just spend extra money to save 2 or 3 minutes total a month on some game download. How much per minute is your time really worth.

The huge advantage to power line even if it is slower is if you play online games. Games only need about 1mbps to play online so pretty much any type of connection will be fast enough. They key advantage is powerline has very consistent latency where wifi you get interference and see lag spikes in games. If you do not play online games then neither is likely better or worse unless you have some application that needs more than 130mbps.

You might consider saving some money and drop yout internet to 100mbps if you can't actually use the full 500mbps either because of the powerline networks or just because you don't have a application that needs it.

 

[NedSmelly]

paying extra money just to get half the speed of a wifi adapter hurts a little bit. otherwise, it's ok

For me it solved a home layout problem that couldn’t be solved with wifi. The house has an L-shaped floor plan and there was a wifi black spot in the living room no matter how I arranged wifi extenders. Smashing plaster walls to fit Cat6 wasn’t an option. So powerline has its niche uses.