[SOLVED] Powerline or Mesh ?

[Raeks]

First off sorry if this isnt in the correct place.

I have 250mbps down which is what I pay for, downstairs with wifi it gets those speeds upstairs I use powerline where I get half those speeds if im lucky (connected to a PC) and a dramatic loss with the wifi speeds.

Would mesh work better or will there not be that much of a difference?

 

[bill001g]

No way to say for sure every house is different. Mesh you must place the remote units where they get good signal from the main router but can still transmit the new signal to the remote room. This tends to be very hard where you have a wall or floor blocking the signal.

Mesh might be fast but it will be much more unstable. It depends on the application. If you are like many on this forum and play online games powerline will be a better option even though it is slower. The speed and latency are extremely consistent and games need almost no bandwidth. Mesh will get latenecy spikes which will cause lag in games.

If you have coax cables in both location MoCA is your best choice. The newer technology can get full gigabit speeds with no latency issues like wifi/mesh.

 

[gggplaya]

125mbps is pretty good for powerline. Most times I've seen 60-80mbps, and around 150mbps on the higher end.

Mesh can also have low bandwidth issues. I would explore MOCA as the best option if you have cable outlets in your house. It'll give actual gigabit speeds.

 

[Raeks]

Which mesh would be better

MK62 Nighthawk Mesh System with WiFi 6 2-Pack | NETGEAR

The MK62 Mesh Wifi System delivers internet speeds of over 100Mbps, supports 25+ devices, and is the ideal WiFi solution for medium to large homes. Buy now!

www.netgear.com

or

2-Pack Orbi Mesh WiFi System | Shop Now from NETGEAR

Ultra-performance whole home mesh WiFi system, covers large homes up to 465 sq m with fast WiFi. Learn more about RBK50 & NETGEAR's router security.

www.netgear.com

 

[bill001g]

The older orbi you link have a extra dedicated radio to talk between the router and the remote unit. The other ones are pretty much stupid repeaters where it in effect jamb the signal going back to the router by resending what it just received.

I hate all mesh systems but ones with dedicated backhaul radios will always be better.

Key though is placement. You can't just stick the remote unit in the room you want the signal. It will get the same crappy signal the end device does and then try to retransmit it. You must place the unit where it can get a strong signal from the main router but still send the signal to the remote room.
When you have a floor or wall absorbing signals there may not be a good place to put it.

It is hard to say if this is going to be faster if you get 125mbps on powerline. I doubt you are going to get the full 250mbps unless you are very lucky. It all depends on why you think the speed is so important. This is mostly for downloading large files. Most other application use far less than the 125mbps. Something like 4k netflix users less than 25 if I remember correctly. If you play online games I would keep the powerline unit for that. Games need almost no bandwidth but they need consistent latency. Wifi in general has very random ping/latency because of data retransmissions. This is made even worse when you have mesh/repeaters, you have 2 signals rather than 1 that can take packet errors.