Power-line adapters - gimmick speed claims?

h0neybadger

Hey guys,

Just had Vodafone gigabit installed there on Saturday.

Confirmed excellent speeds connected directly to the gigabox.

Bought a TP-Link AV600 powerline kit there yesterday.

Am I losing my mind, or are these sold as
"Up to 600 Mbps" yet the Ethernet sockets on them are fast Ethernet?

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/products/details/TL-WPA4226-KIT-V1.2.html#specifications

Interface 2 * 10/100Mbps Ethernet Ports –TL-WPA4220
2 * 10/100Mbps Ethernet Ports – TL-PA4020P

Sorry, if I'm mistaken here, but how can a speed of "up to 600 Mbps" be achieved if the port on it connected to the router is fast Ethernet 100Mpbs..

As 1. it limits Ethernet connections to 100Mpbs and the WiFi can't obviously be faster than that, even though it's claimed to be up to 300Mbps on the box, manual, website etc..

Am I missing something obvious here?

ED E

Nope. Thats the signalling rate, half duplex. If you pull 80Mb through them you're doing well.

I run AV1200s, 1G ports, 140Mb. If homeplugs are a core part of your setup gigabit isn't for you.

h0neybadger

They're a temp solution until I've had a chance to run cat6 around..

Marlow

And if you have washing machine, tumbler or something the likes running, you might be lucky seeing half of the 80 Mbit/s.

I've come across a setup today, where somebody had power line adapters from his ONT to his router, then rang the ISP to complain, that he only got 30 Mbit/s on speedtests.

Once he connected the router to the ONT directly and did a wired speedtest it was 150 Mbit/s (the package speed in this case) every single time.

/M

h0neybadger

Thanks for that info guys.

Perhaps I still don't follow.

I'm not expecting, or under any assumption that a powerline adapter could reach anything close to their maximum speeds or internet speed.

What I am confused about, is on the box.. it states.. Up to 300Mpbs over WiFi, 600Mpbs over Ethernet.
How, can this be stated as being possible, if the port, feeding the adapters are 10/100 - fast Ethernet, providing a maximum speed of 100Mpbs between the device connected to it, and the adapter.

WiFi, I understand it's 2.4ghz, so yes, a laptop / phone can achieve the said 300Mpbs connection speed to the TP-Link WiFi adapter.
But on the other end, the adapter is connected to the router using a fast Ethernet port, thus limiting it's connection to 100Mpbs.

I'm more interested in the Up to 600Mpbs connection advertised over Ethernet, so this is directly saying a device can connect over Ethernet at a speed of upto 600Mpbs. But that cannot be true, as it's 10/100 fast Ethernet?

Or am I still not getting this right

Sorry... I'm not a technophobe, I just can't get my head around this for some reason...

The high horse brigade

h0neybadger wrote: »

Thanks for that info guys.

Perhaps I still don't follow.

I'm not expecting, or under any assumption that a powerline adapter could reach anything close to their maximum speeds or internet speed.

What I am confused about, is on the box.. it states.. Up to 300Mpbs over WiFi, 600Mpbs over Ethernet.
How, can this be stated as being possible, if the port, feeding the adapters are 10/100 - fast Ethernet, providing a maximum speed of 100Mpbs.

That's the signal rate. Because it's possible to do it once, in a controlled environment like a lab, and in one direction only

tuxy

The high horse brigade wrote: »

That's the signal rate. Because it's possible to do it once, in a controlled environment like a lab, and in one direction only

Can you get 600 Mbit over fast ethernet(100Mbit) in a lab?

The high horse brigade

tuxy wrote: »

Can you get 600 Mbit over fast ethernet(100Mbit) in a lab?

It's the signalling rate homeplug to homeplug, it's a technology standard, like wireless "N" or "AC"

tuxy

The high horse brigade wrote: »

It's the signalling rate homeplug to homeplug, it's a technology standard, like wireless "N" or "AC"

I understand that but the op is asking how can it be advertised as 600Mbit if it comes with a fast ethernet connection and not a gigabit ethernet connection.

Could a 100 Mbit ethernet card be sold as 1 gigabit once it was sold with a cat5e/6 cable?

The high horse brigade

tuxy wrote: »

I understand that but the op is asking how can it be advertised as 600Mbit if it comes with a fast ethernet connection and not a gigabit ethernet connection.

Because that's the technology standard it's using.

Agreed it's a bit of a sh1te product and could be called false advertising but in my eyes homeplugs are always a terrible option

tuxy

I think advertising it as 600av is legit but putting 600 Mbit is a joke.

ED E

The wireless network is N300. Attach two laptops to it in a lab and you'll get close to 300Mb between them. Nothing said its 300Mb to WAN.


TP, Netgear etc all sell AC 9999 units by adding different bands and radios together, no way a single device can use that made up bandwidth but they do it. No consumer protection group has spanked them in court yet so it persists.

h0neybadger

thanks for confirming what I thought at least I know I'm not going crazy.

TP-Link support response to my query:

"You should have read the manual. It's clearly written in there that they are 10/100 ports"

I then replied I can't read the manual until purchased and opened, thus voiding my ability to return for a refund.

They have yet to reply with my latest email...

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

On the side of the box, it should read specifications. Under that is a heading, "Interfaces". I am pretty sure it states "10/100mb ethernet ports"

h0neybadger

read the box in full. No mention of interfaces or fast Ethernet, or 10/100 ports. Nothing.
Have it here with me, and just read it again to be sure..

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

That's odd. The pictures of that model online show it listed at the side of the box. We've about five different models of tplink powerline adapters and they all have the port speed isted on the side. Where did you buy it from?

Snaga

You can have more than 2 powerline adapters connected together in a home, so potentially you could have more traffic 'on the powerline' than is used between two individual endpoints and their Fast ethernet ports.

MBSnr

h0neybadger wrote: »

thanks for confirming what I thought at least I know I'm not going crazy.

TP-Link support response to my query:

"You should have read the manual. It's clearly written in there that they are 10/100 ports"

I then replied I can't read the manual until purchased and opened, thus voiding my ability to return for a refund.

They have yet to reply with my latest email...

Surely you could just read the specs online...
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/products/details/cat-18_TL-PA4022P-KIT.html#specifications
As the other posters have said, you'll only get 10%-20% of that speed in real world situations, so the 100Mbps ports aren't the issue. But can catch people out. Same as many wired smart devices and Android boxes only have 100Mbps LAN ports.

I have 4 AV1300 plugs as stupidly my house was never wired for Ethernet when built. Having said that, they work well enough for our needs. One is on an AP upstairs which speed tests show to be running at between 100-150Mbps - about 10% of the advertised 'speed'. Another is on a smart TV that can stream UHD content without a bother - it probably runs at more like 50Mbps.

Cuddlesworth

Wired connects are rated at specific speeds, listed against very specific cabling standards. Maximum distances, cable types with very specific requirements to qualify, interference shielding etc. Its unusual for cabled connections to run out of spec.

When wireless was released to the market properly, they marketed the speed as the maximum theoretical bandwidth available. In most cases, there isn't a chance they could even achieve that in a lab with normal machines. You would have to go out of your way to try make it possible.

When they released powerline, they did the exact same thing. Its not ideal but its not wrong either. Unfortunately, as others have stated wireless and powerline are not running perfect transfer mediums within spec. They are prone to interference and the medium they work in(half Duplex) makes it worse.

Whats worse are the devices that charge more for gig ports when the device itself never tops 100mb in the read world.

Snaga wrote: »

You can have more than 2 powerline adapters connected together in a home, so potentially you could have more traffic 'on the powerline' than is used between two individual endpoints and their Fast ethernet ports.

It would actually get slower per device added, even considering they act as relays.

celtic_oz

i used powerline for years went mesh with these and find them much more reliable, no drops and can stream hd no problem

h0neybadger

So to update:

Got a refund for the TP-Link adapters.
To confirm, they were fast Ethernet, and I was achieving the full 10/100 speed with them.
D/L constant 9.6Mb/s steady transfer rate.
U/L constant 0.95Mb/s steady transfer rate.

Bought some Netgear 1gbps adapters.
D/L speed, constant 2Mb/s!
U/L speed,constant 10Mb/s

Speeds were tested between my Nas in the living room directly connected to the Gigabox and to my online FTP server, downloading various 5GB+ files, and various smaller files for 60 minute tests.

Have given up with them, and ran cat5e cables and all is good now.
D/L speed, constant 85-90Mb/s
U/L speed, constant 9Mb/s

Wiring in the house is great, it's only 6 years old. Using the TP-Link, I did achieve the full speed of 10/100. The Netgear, worked great for uploads, but something dodgy about them on downloads. Swapped them out for another pair in case they were faulty, cables too etc, yet still the same.

Have used the same model previously in another house, and never had an issue, always achieved solid speeds with them.

The TP-Link were purchased in Harvey Norman. They had no issues offering the refund after explaining what I said above to their manager.

And I double checked, the NetGear has a big sticker on the top front of the box, saying 1000gbps.
Written in 2 places, "Gigabit speeds"

The TP-Link has zero markings on the box to indicate they are 10/100.
Zero mention of "10/100" or "Fast Ethernet" Just the 300mbps over WiFi and 600mbps via the port respectively.
Very misleading

tuxy

h0neybadger wrote: »

Wiring in the house is great(

That's the problem, wiring is designed to carry electricity to power utilities not send data info. Perfectly good electric wiring can work awful with the adaptors and in some cases I've seen house with dodgy wiring work fairly good with them. You can never tell until you test them out. I get massive difference in speed depending on which combination of sockets I use in my house.

bottar1

Power-line adapters are never a good solution if you want the lowest ping/are gaming or something.

Speeds were atrocious, ever since running a long ethernet cable across the place and going full wired my speeds never take a hit. Well worth it.

advertsfox

Powerline adapters are a great solution against using WiFi. I like to promote them as a method of QoS or bandwidth control. If you have a house with Virgin 360MB and 5-7 adapters connected, everyone will get an fair distribution of speed with no 1 device hogging all the network esp. with media heavy devices like sticks / boxes / TVs.

The high horse brigade

advertsfox wrote: »

Powerline adapters are a great solution against using WiFi. I like to promote them as a method of QoS or bandwidth control. If you have a house with Virgin 360MB and 5-7 adapters connected, everyone will get an fair distribution of speed with no 1 device hogging all the network esp. with media heavy devices like sticks / boxes / TVs.

QOS isn't needed with 360mbit

advertsfox

The high horse brigade wrote: »

QOS isn't needed with 360mbit

LOL tis why I mentioned bandwidth control, most modern routers have some sort of QoS for Audio / Video etc (just like the TP-Link plugs do) but by turning that off by default and just using the plugs - you give everyone a max speed to do with as they please without effecting everyone else (if your speeds are great enough of course, e.g with Virgin). In my house, we have 4 boxes which are constantly using IPTV + Kodi / Netflix streams with TP-Links to every device, works a charm.

The high horse brigade

advertsfox wrote: »

LOL tis why I mentioned bandwidth control, most modern routers have some sort of QoS for Audio / Video etc (just like the TP-Link plugs do) but by turning that off by default and just using the plugs - you give everyone a max speed to do with as they please without effecting everyone else (if your speeds are great enough of course, e.g with Virgin). In my house, we have 4 boxes which are constantly using IPTV + Kodi / Netflix streams with TP-Links to every device, works a charm.

You don't need QOS with 360mbit. How many streams are you running? With multiple streams in a household you'd struggle to use half of that bandwidth. Anyway you're thinking about it the wrong way. If you want the best network especially one that's half duplex like wireless and homeplugs you want your data transferred as quick as possible between the hosts and the router minimising their time on the wire holding up transfers to other devices