Your experience with homeplugs/Powerline etc

Deliverance XXV

Hi all.

I have my 100Mb connection arriving this Thursday and I want to get the most out of it.
The wireless reception in my house is not great with about 40-60% difference compared to a wired connection (constantly switching wireless channels with the help of inSSIDer).

What's your experience with homeplugs/internet power plugs? Better performance than wireless? There are ones on the market that support up to 200Mb.
The router is downstairs and the main computer is upstairs. I don't particularly want to start running cables around as the house is rented.

Doing a search on the forum gives some mixed results so it might be useful for future searchers to have it all in the one thread.

Thanks for any input

BArra

i bought the western digital powerline kit recently off amazon, similar to a plug based one, but this has 4 ethernet ports on a block, so capable of hooking up a few devices, handy as my amp needs ethernet, ps3, boxee box..ect

i bought it purely for hd streaming from upstairs to downstairs and it works flawlessly with no stuttering

their program is telling me im getting 128mbps

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Livewire-Powerline-Network-Ports-Twin/dp/B003YFHD1W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=computers&qid=1304975117&sr=8-1

they look large in the pics, but they are pretty small

vibe666

do a few file copies using something like teracopy (and just use teracopy full stop for any file copies, it's awesome!) and see what you're really getting.

i got some 85mbps homeplugs and i was lucky to get 3-5mbps out of them most of the time.

a combination of crappy wiring, crossing a ring main (i.e downstairs to upstairs) and a house full of cheap energy saver CFL bulbs from IKEA are the most likely culprits.

also, *apparently* homeplugs *can* turn your house wiring into a giant radio jammer that can interfere with anything from cb radio to fm, DAB & apparently even (potentially) air traffic control on the new 1gbps ones.

there was a youtube video a while back where a guy was demonstrating the interference caused whilst copying files via his homeplug network, but i can't find it now.

i'm pretty sure i read an article on it as well at some point.

anyway, i'm not a fan of them, tried them, didn't like them, ended up drilling a hole through the wall to outside and running an ethernet cable up the drain pipe and back into the house and into a switch and haven't looked back since.

Sponge Bob

Crossing a ring makes ****e of them. If a few rooms share a single ring main it is fast but to get to any other circuit it has to cross the fuseboard. The latest versions interfere with all sorts of stuff ....FM radio will be next to be affected and air traffic comms in the Air Bands, these may not be in the shop yet but will appear this year.

Solair

The vast majority of Irish houses don't use ring mains anyway. They're usually 20amp / 16amp radial circuits, the same as the continent and the US.

A ring main is a 32A circuit serving a large area fed with power from both ends i.e. it's connected to the breaker/fuse at both ends of the circuit.

They're very popular in the UK. In Ireland, they're permitted, but they're not the norm.

In our normal wiring, a single circuit typically serves 1 or 2 rooms max. Where as in the UK, they'd shove a whole floor on the same circuit to save on copper and breakers. Rings were introduced after WWII to do things on the cheap basically and they're also the reason why fused plugs are required i.e. the appliance and cord are only protected by the fuse in the plug on a ring main.

I've used Powerline ethernet with several houses and apartments here, none of which have had rings and they have worked fine across different radial circuits.

In general, they work fine. The biggest issue is if the house is very big and there are long runs of cable.

Sponge Bob

Solair wrote: »

The vast majority of Irish houses don't use ring mains anyway. They're usually 20amp / 16amp radial circuits, the same as the continent and the US.

Correct.

I've used Powerline ethernet with several houses and apartments here, none of which have had rings and they have worked fine across different radial circuits.

The 85mbit ones generally did but the faster ones don't seem to deliver the extra headline speeds on radial circuits which are the norm here. Rewiring a house is expensive and messy.

I gave up on them and run proper Gigabit Ethernet cable instead. It works to 100m and most houses are less than 100m long I find :cool:

Solair

Well, the primary purpose of your house's electrical wiring is to safely distribute electricity, not to act as a carrier for data. So, if you're having trouble with HomePlug networks, I'd say you're better off to wire in some proper ethernet cables instead.

There are lots of arguments in favour of the radial-based wiring system from a fire safety, load balancing and fault-tracing point of view. Rings are a quirk of British wiring and they are generally considered a bit of an over-complex solution to a simple problem. They make a weird assumption that if you connect both ends of a cable to the power source, that then you can double the rated current carrying capacity of that cable.

The problem with that is if the load is all concentrated at one point on the ring, or if the ring is split accidentally during DIY work there is a fire risk.

That's why rings are no longer allowed to serve kitchens in Ireland.

I wouldn't go ripping out a perfectly good, and arguably technically superior wiring system just to carry Ethernet on 230V British-style rings

roast

I myself had a set of 85mbps homeplugs. I pretty much picked them up just to mess around with, but ended up using them in a new apartment. Worked perfectly with my 30Mb UPC connection. Had no different in speed, but the latency suffered, albeit by 5-10ms at most.

Once I got the 100mbps UPC connection though, the homeplugs were only able to transfer around 55mbps at most. Ping still suffered slightly. Could never get them to work at the theoretical 85mbps.

So I f*cked them on top of the wardrobe, drilled a hole through the wall, and layered the place with ethernet cable. Rented apartment too, but nothing that a bitta Pollyfilla can't cover up.

OP, if you really want to get the most out of your 100Mb connection, forget homeplugs and get some ethernet cable. A box of CAT5E is dirt cheap (30-40€).

homer911

Due to the fact that they are larger than regular plugs, it can be tempting to put them into an extension cable - dont do this - it seriously degrades the performance.

where I have my router located, the only available socket was not suitable for a Homeplug (due to obstructions) and I first tried a 4-gang extension and had problems - I got a single plug entension and put a foot of cable on it and it works fine

Solair

In general they only get 100mbit/s under ideal circumstances i.e. both sockets relatively close by and on the same circuit and no interference.

The reality is that household wiring is far from ideal for carrying signals. It's big chunky copper cable, wired through fairly crude terminals and designed to deliver 230V power, not signals. Nose may feed back into the circuits from appliances and all sorts of things. Most homes have a plethora switch mode power supplies in portable appliances (e.g. your mobile phone plug), small appliances like satellite boxes, radios, cd players, lighting systems, fluorescent tubes, etc. Things like washing machine motors are now normally electronically controlled too, which can mean that there could be strange interference feeding back into your power lines.

Power wiring is also totally unshielded, i.e. it's just wrapped in two layers of PVC.

All in all, it's amazing HomePlugs work at all !

BArra

it does seem that they can be hit or miss, but i am at least one instance where they work, mine clearly deliver a high enough speed if i am capable of streaming full HD stuff with zero stuttering

roast

BArra wrote: »

it does seem that they can be hit or miss, but i am at least one instance where they work, mine clearly deliver a high enough speed if i am capable of streaming full HD stuff with zero stuttering

Well, I'd be the same.... i can still stream full HD with zero stuttering.... but still, it limits connection speeds, and impacts response time.

vibe666

Solair wrote: »

In our normal wiring, a single circuit typically serves 1 or 2 rooms max. Where as in the UK, they'd shove a whole floor on the same circuit to save on copper and breakers. Rings were introduced after WWII to do things on the cheap basically and they're also the reason why fused plugs are required i.e. the appliance and cord are only protected by the fuse in the plug on a ring main.

not sure exactly what i have, but i'm in a 10yr old 4 bed semi outside navan and all the downstairs sockets are run off a single fuse and upstairs off another, same with up & down lights and the 85mbps homeplugs were okayish downstairs, but crossing the fusebox to reach upstairs killed the transfer speeds on mine, so i just assumed that was what was meant by a ring main, but maybe not.

starviewadams

Have UPC and the wireless constantly dropping out is annoying me!

Would these work with UPC BB? :http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/9295146.htm

Cheers!

roast

starviewadams wrote: »

Have UPC and the wireless constantly dropping out is annoying me!

Would these work with UPC BB? :http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/9295146.htm

Cheers!

Aye, they'll work with UPC broadband.... but just make sure to read all the posts in this thread to be aware of any potential issues with homeplugs.

Solair

vibe666 wrote: »

not sure exactly what i have, but i'm in a 10yr old 4 bed semi outside navan and all the downstairs sockets are run off a single fuse and upstairs off another, same with up & down lights and the 85mbps homeplugs were okayish downstairs, but crossing the fusebox to reach upstairs killed the transfer speeds on mine, so i just assumed that was what was meant by a ring main, but maybe not.

Basically, if they're 32A breakers / fuses feeding the sockets then they're rings.
Rings are permitted in Ireland, they're just much less commonly used than they are in the UK. Irish wiring practices prefer radials. This is partially because we originally used German/Northern European style "Schuko" 16amp plugs and sockets and Diazed fuses (the bottle-shape cartridge fuses) which were never used in the UK. Britian used a rather crude rewirable fuse, which is why you will hear English people talking about "mending a fuse" rather than "changing a fuse". You literally cut a length of fuse wire and connect it between two terminals on a fuse carrier on old UK wiring!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_circuit

If they're 16A or 20A breakers / fuses then they're radials.

Radial circuit: (as typically found in most Irish homes)

Sponge Bob

They are 24a - 32a Solair. radial circuits tend to be 15a-20a , just a rough guide mind. If all the breakers are 30-32a and there are only 4 or 5 of them the whole house is probably ring mains.

Solair

HomePlug actually sends the signal over the neutral anyway so it does not pass through the fuses or breakers. The neutrals in Irish wiring (or most wiring) are not fused they're just all ultimately connected back to a neutral bar on the fuse box.

Typical Irish wiring will have the live and neutral passing through a single RCD (used to be known as an ELCB). This detects any difference between the current flowing on the live and neutral wires and cuts the power to the circuit if the difference is more than a preset value, usually 30mA. This is what trips if you get any leakage to earth e.g. your kettle terminals are wet, or you touch a live wire. It prevents electric shock / death.

After the RCD, each circuit goes through a MCB (Mini-Circuit Breaker) or fuse which provides the over current protection i.e. these have a preset value in amps and will blow/trip if the current flowing through the circuit is higher than that value. This prevents the wires in the walls from overheating and catching fire. It will also trip if there is a straight neutral-live short circuit. Finally, the fuse in the plug protects the appliance cord (and, possibly the wiring in the appliance) from overloading and going on fire.
If you're using rings, this is the only protection for this and it is why they advise that you NEVER connect a European 2-pin plug directly to a UK/Irish socket without a fused adapter.

Whether these are 16amp or 20amp radials, or 32A rings or anything else, they are only on the LIVE side of the circuit. All the neutrals are ultimately connected together and back to the RCD.

However, if you have multiple RCDs e.g. for different floors, RCBOs (combined RCD/MCB) on every circuit or if you have RCD sockets, it's possible that this could cause issues with the power-line networking signals as the neutral has to pass through a coil on the way back.

What's more likely to make differences is the length of the cables really and the complexity of the layout.

Sponge Bob

AN ELCB is not an RCCB Solair. It detects earth leakage from a fault and trips.

A combi will detect either earth leakage or residual current and will trip. You can have a combi on a ring if you wish.

There is a neeutral bus bar per ROW of trips so if you gotta cross rows there is an issue with bandwidth.

Matt Simis

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The 85mbit ones generally did but the faster ones don't seem to deliver the extra headline speeds on radial circuits which are the norm here. Rewiring a house is expensive and messy.

I gave up on them and run proper Gigabit Ethernet cable instead. It works to 100m and most houses are less than 100m long I find :cool:

I did the same as the above.

PogMoThoin

My experience with them hasn't been great, even in brand new houses with new cabling I've seen poor speeds and high latency, certainly not good enough for media. As a cat 5 cable does gigabit its a no-brainer not to run them. With a little bit of thought its very easy to conceal cat5.

Solair

Sponge Bob wrote: »

AN ELCB is not an RCCB Solair. It detects earth leakage from a fault and trips.

A combi will detect either earth leakage or residual current and will trip. You can have a combi on a ring if you wish.

There is a neeutral bus bar per ROW of trips so if you gotta cross rows there is an issue with bandwidth.

I was using the term ELCB, as they are often still labelled as such on older panels, even though in many instances they are actually IEC-defined RCDs. There were older (obsolete) voltage operated ELCBs which detected voltage on the earth wire and tripped, but the terminology clung on in the 1970s, 80s and long after manufacturers had stopped using the term ELCB, electricians continued to describe it as such and write it on panels.

Many people will still recognise ELCB and won't have a clue what an RCD is. The terminology is all far too confusing i.e. MCB vs RCD vs RCBO. It'd be far easier as Circuit Breaker, Earth Fault Detector, Combined Earth Fault Detector + Circuit Breaker.

As for the signal transmission on the household wiring; the complexity of the neutrals, the size of the premises and 'noisy' devices are most definitely the problem.

In general power-line networking's ok, but it's not great if you want very high speed rock solid networks. It's kinda handy though if you're stuck with poor WiFi penetration in part of your house / office and don't fancy running cables.

We were using a homeplug network for that, but in the end I put the WiFi router into the attic which made all the difference as it penetrates ceilings (plaster board) and floors (wood) much more readily than it will penetrate concrete / block internal walls.

New homes should be fully wired for Ethernet though. It's actually in the building regulations in France now! We missed a huge opportunity during the building boom by not making buildings and housing developments 100% broadband friendly i.e. properly wired homes with CAT6 Ethernet points in every room and decent underground neutral duct networks for carrying cables / fibres.

Sadly, it's all too late now as there's so little construction happening and we've everything built!

Also, the other drawback of power-line networking is that it can produce RF signals as electrical wiring is totally unshielded. You get a lot of complaints about it in the UK as BT is handing out power line adapters to everyone who gets their homehub + TV and there are a lot of radio HAMs in the UK who will complain to Ofcom about such things!

There were some experiments with using ESB lines to carry broadband direct to home but it seems they were deemed impractical. There's nothing to stop ESB from clipping fibres to power lines though or pushing them through ducts in housing estates.

Sponge Bob

There is no way on earth that Powerline should ever be used outdoors, even indoors it should be 'notched' ( off) in certain frequency bands but cheap Homeplug adapters do not have the filters to do the notching and no standards are enforced.

And if you think Ofcom are bad Comreg are beyond caring about anything.

Solair

Sponge Bob wrote: »

There is no way on earth that Powerline should ever be used outdoors, even indoors it should be 'notched' ( off) in certain frequency bands but cheap Homeplug adapters do not have the filters to do the notching and no standards are enforced.

And if you think Ofcom are bad Comreg are beyond caring about anything.

Yeah, I agree. At least the French had the good sense to predict that people would need a lot of bandwidth in their homes and started to implement a requirement that all major rooms in a house have data wiring. You now basically have a 'cofret de communication' installed along side your electrical distribution panel 'cofret electrique'

Typical installation : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpJm6-YHBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fznrjae2o90 (promo video)

Sponge Bob

I installed CatV in my brand new semi in 1997 excepting that the Cofret was the attic Had I waited for official Ireland I would still be outside the door of a morning sniffing the air for a satellite signal with my nose of course.

Solair

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I installed CatV in my brand new semi in 1997 excepting that the Cofret was the attic Had I waited for official Ireland I would still be outside the door of a morning sniffing the air for a satellite signal with my nose of course.

Well, given that the same "official Ireland" let property developers exclude Eircom and the local cable company from apartment buildings and other developments and inflict their own home-brew, usually overpriced, "broad"band network on them, I'd say you'd have been waiting alright!

Much of "official Ireland" still sees telecommunications like this, in my experience of them :





We have a 1970s house, but it had been wired for telephone in most rooms. The phone cables all ran back to the attic via ducts, so it was just a matter of carefully pushing Ethernet cables back through the same ducts and installing a router in the attic. We even managed to get double coaxial cable down to a few rooms as well as cat6 as the ducts were pretty generously oversized and we kept the old telephone wiring too. So, from one point you can get analogue telephone on RJ11, RJ45 Ethernet & 2 LNB sat

Whole thing goes back to the attic.

We had fun though when a Sky installer basically wanted to ignore the internal wiring entirely and was insisting that he had to install cables directly through my front wall and to the sky box rather than to the internal wiring

UPC were similarly idiotic when the eventually did show up with digital cable + BB in the area.
The installer kept insisting that he wasn't allowed to walk in a floored attic which has a stairs for access!

bk

Solair wrote: »

We even managed to get double coaxial cable down to a few rooms as well as cat6 as the ducts were pretty generously oversized and we kept the old telephone wiring too. So, from one point you can get analogue telephone on RJ11, RJ45 Ethernet & 2 LNB sat

FYI There wasn't much point in keeping the old telephone wire in place, you could also replace it with Cat 5e.

A single Cat 5e cable can be used for 4 separate phone lines or 2 phone line + 100Mb/s ethernet.

A Cat 5e cable has 8 cables in 4 pairs. Each phone line only uses one pair, 100Mb ethernet uses 2 pairs and gigabit ethernet uses 4 pairs.

Solair

bk wrote: »

FYI There wasn't much point in keeping the old telephone wire in place, you could also replace it with Cat 5e.

A single Cat 5e cable can be used for 4 separate phone lines or 2 phone line + 100Mb/s ethernet.

A Cat 5e cable has 8 cables in 4 pairs. Each phone line only uses one pair, 100Mb ethernet uses 2 pairs and gigabit ethernet uses 4 pairs.

It was more difficult to pull it out than keep it in Ever tried pulling open twisted pair 1970s solid core telephone cable through a duct!? It will hardly bend!

fionny

I have the gigabit Belkin Powerline adaptors and im very happy with them, they work flawlessly even though its connected via a double adaptor as I had no choice.

Would recommend.

PogMoThoin

My own experience with every Belkin networking product I've ever come across has been dire. What speed are you getting through them and hows the latency between them? 30mbit is plenty to stream 1080p HD but most wireless and powerline fails to achieve this, therefore its always best and futureproof to run a cat5 cable. If you're not streaming media now, the day will come when you'll want to.

fionny

PogMoThoin wrote: »

My own experience with every Belkin networking product I've ever come across has been dire. What speed are you getting through them and hows the latency between them? 30mbit is plenty to stream 1080p HD but most wireless and powerline fails to achieve this, therefore its always best and futureproof to run a cat5 cable. If you're not streaming media now, the day will come when you'll want to.

I echo your sentiments on Belkin products normally but these are actually really good, I was able to stream 1080p np to a downstair player. My latency improved over the wireless N i previously used but then latency all depends where your connecting to.

Sgt Pepper 64

I am using 200 mbit devolo ones, and get 182mbit using their dlan cockpit monitoring software from them, I've yet to try coping a file
and thats with them plugged into a powerstrip downstairs at the router and then going upstairs into another powerstrip.
I also have a 85mbit one plugged into on the other side of the strip plug

Occassionally it loses signal, but I just unplug it and replug and it works fine



http://www.devolo.com/