Powerline/Homeplug Adapters Question

Myrddin

I set up a pair of these over the weekend for use in an apartment. These ones here, which are 500Mbps rated. Now, as they're not gigabit rated...the router they're connected to via an ethernet port is showing an amber led for this port, thus I'm getting a 10/100 connection. On the receiving end of the powerline, the speed being given is reduced down to 30Mbps at best.

My question is this, why bother rating these things for 500Mbps is they're always ever going to be limited to 100Mbps anyway by a router? I knew I wouldn't get 500Mbps out of them given the nature of how they work, but I thought it'd be better than 30Mpbs!

Secondly, if I connected a gigabit switch to the router, and then connected the sender powerline to the switch instead of the router, am I likely to see better speeds as the router will be providing a 10/100/1000 connection for them?

listermint

Myrddin wrote: »

I set up a pair of these over the weekend for use in an apartment. These ones here, which are 500Mbps rated. Now, as they're not gigabit rated...the router they're connected to via an ethernet port is showing an amber led for this port, thus I'm getting a 10/100 connection. On the receiving end of the powerline, the speed being given is reduced down to 30Mbps at best.

My question is this, why bother rating these things for 500Mbps is they're always ever going to be limited to 100Mbps anyway by a router? I knew I wouldn't get 500Mbps out of them given the nature of how they work, but I thought it'd be better than 30Mpbs!

Secondly, if I connected a gigabit switch to the router, and then connected the sender powerline to the switch instead of the router, am I likely to see better speeds as the router will be providing a 10/100/1000 connection for them?

Why bother rating these to 500Mbps ??

Are the manufacturers to know that your router only supports 100Mbps over its ports ? Its rated that way because it supports that speed.

Your own equipment and conditions (line conditions) determine the rest.

Myrddin

listermint wrote: »

Why bother rating these to 500Mbps ??

Are the manufacturers to know that your router only supports 100Mbps over its ports ? Its rated that way because it supports that speed.

Your own equipment and conditions (line conditions) determine the rest.

Read again, the router used isn't 10/100...it's a Docsis 3, gigabit router. My question is why bother rating the adapters for 500Mbps if any router is only ever going to recognise them as 10/100 and limit transfer speeds accordingly, given that they're not gigabit capable.

Myrddin

Again, I wasn't expecting to get anywhere near 500Mbps out of them, but certainly was expecting to get more than 30Mbps. If a put a gigabit switch between the sender adapter and the router, would the router enable 10/100/1000 for the switch, which might then maximise the speed the powerline adapter might be able to give? (Obviously they'll still be 10/100 limited, but might I see higher than 30Mbps by adding in a gigabit switch?)

Alun

This is TP-Links "xplanation ...

http://www.tp-link.com/en/faq-461.html

Some customers are asking or having quite strong opinions on the homeplug manufactures idea of TL-PA411(TL-PA4010) is homeplug 500Mbps however only having 100Mbps Ethernet ports, the points below may help you to understand better.

First, the stated rate on the product is the actual physical layer bit rate speed for homeplugs, this is the raw data rate possible. During the data transmission, the top layer protocol will adds a lot of extra bits to the transmission reducing the actual throughput. So in real terms, the Maximum throughput of Homeplug AV500 circa 240Mbps. And the powerline might be affected by various electrical equipments. With comparatively serious interference, the speed can’t reach up to the max value, in other words, the actual speed might be lower than 240Mbps.

Also if there are multiple powerline adapters(three or more) working in one circuit, none of the adapters can get the total 240Mbps bandwidth since the total bandwidth is shared by all the networks. In that case, adapter with Gigabit Ethernet port might not be an economical choice as you can’t fully utilize it.

By all accounts, TL-PA411(TL-PA4010) has higher cost performance. In most cases, TL-PA411(TL-PA4010) with Fast Ethernet port can completely satisfy the requirement.

Of course, if you have higher demand for speed, we also provide TL-PA511, TL-PA6010 with Gigabit Ethernet Port to meet it.

Alun

listermint wrote: »

Are the manufacturers to know that your router only supports 100Mbps over its ports.

The plugs themselves are limited to 100Mbps.

Alun

FWIW I have a pair of devolo 650+ homeplugs, considered as one of the best manufacturers out there. The devolo utility shows me that I supposedly have a connection speed of approx. 500Mbit/s between the two, yet I can only manage between 150-160Mbit/s actual transfer speed.

As for the 30Mbit/s transfer you're getting that could be due to any number of things including your house wiring or if you have anything else plugged into the same twin socket or extension lead as the homeplugs. I've found any kind of switching power supply such as laptop chargers play havoc with them. That's why I'd always recommend the homeplugs that have a pass-through mains socket on them.

Myrddin

Alun wrote: »

This is TP-Links "xplanation ...

http://www.tp-link.com/en/faq-461.html

Interesting. So it's a sales pitch more than anything else. I'm wondering if:

10/100 (direct from gigabit router) + signal degradation + signal noise = 30Mbps in the real world.
10/100/1000 (from a switch instead of 10/100 direct from router) + signal degradation + signal noise = maybe 60/70Mbps real world?

Alun

Myrddin wrote: »

Interesting. So it's a sales pitch more than anything else. I'm wondering if:

10/100 (direct from gigabit router) + signal degradation + signal noise = 30Mbps in the real world.
10/100/1000 (from a switch instead of 10/100 direct from router) + signal degradation + signal noise = maybe 60/70Mbps real world?

No. A 100Mbit/s Ethernet connection is perfectly capable of supporting speeds above 30Mbit/s, so it is probably just a result of your wiring or interference from other devices on your power network,

Just a thought though .. is it by any chance a Virgin Media/UPC Ubee modem? There's a problem with those units that means that they won't go above 30Mbit/s on 100Mbit/s Ethernet connections although they work at full speed on gigabit connections. I thought that particular problem had been solved with a firmware update but could be wrong.

Myrddin

Alun wrote: »

No. A 100Mbit/s Ethernet connection is perfectly capable of supporting speeds above 30Mbit/s, so it is probably just a result of your wiring or interference from other devices on your power network

Ah, that answers that then, thank you

Just a thought though .. is it by any chance a Virgin Media/UPC Ubee modem? There's a problem with those units that means that they won't go above 30Mbit/s on 100Mbit/s Ethernet connections although they work at full speed on gigabit connections. I thought that particular problem had been solved with a firmware update but could be wrong.

It's a UPC Cisco EPC3925 if I recall...