Wireless v.s Homeplug?

MrMarvelous · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:17

Hi guys.

I currently have wireless and i'm wondering if I should buy a pair of 200Mbps Homeplugs to increase my internet speed.

Would it make any difference in terms of speed and ping over wireless? I've found a pair for £20 and i'm tempted to try them out.

Thanks.

Infidelus · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:18

Homeplug beats Wireless any day of the week

MrMarvelous · 25 Mar 2013 at 14:47

All I needed, thank you!

monkeyspank · 25 Mar 2013 at 15:23

how fast is your internet?

i probably wouldn't bother unless you are shifting large files about over the lan. Also depends on your wireless I guess

you can get about 18MBps with the right 802.11N stuff

Gammawolf · 25 Mar 2013 at 15:52

Infidelus said:
Homeplug beats Wireless any day of the week

Except when it doesn't

I've personally never had much difference in ping with wireless vs ethernet (talking about the range of about 0.5ms) so i don't think theres much to gain with homeplugs in that department. It all depends on your current setup, as you'd need a good pair of 300-500 Mbps homeplugs to beat my wireless setup. I'd need to approach 1Gbps homeplugs if i were to put it head to head if I upgraded my router to 802.11ac, so it's all relative to you're personal circumstances. Details of which are lacking in the OP

Infidelus · 25 Mar 2013 at 19:56

I've yet to see a wireless setup that's as stable as it's wired counterpart, nor one that can match wired for transfer speeds. Granted ping will likely not change a great deal, but there's less chance of dropouts with a wired connection, and no driveby data theft from Google ... or anyone else with a wifi sniffer

. If you're a gamer it's a no brainer.

bledd · 26 Mar 2013 at 14:43

Spend the money on nice trunking instead

Russinating · 26 Mar 2013 at 15:29

bledd. said:
Spend the money on nice trunking instead

Srsly? A £20 pair of Homeplugs vs trunking? He might not even own his flat.

I've used Homeplugs for about 3 years and they're great. Previously there were in a shared flat where the router was downstairs and I'd only get 1 bar on Wireless, now I just use them for my Xbox which is in another room.

Gammawolf · 26 Mar 2013 at 18:28

Infidelus said:
I've yet to see a wireless setup that's as stable as it's wired counterpart, nor one that can match wired for transfer speeds. Granted ping will likely not change a great deal, but there's less chance of dropouts with a wired connection, and no driveby data theft from Google ... or anyone else with a wifi sniffer . If you're a gamer it's a no brainer.

You've missed the biggest flaw in a wired connection, you need wires for it to work.
Stability isn't an issue on WiFi, its apples to oranges comparing it to wired, some things affect wireless stability, some things affect wire stability. Speed isn't really and issue either. You only need to read these threads here to get an idea of the real through put of so called 300 and 500 Mbps homeplugs:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18383928
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18375205

Those vs the real world through put speeds that I get of about 135Mbps shows that even 300Mbps wireless n is on par with 300-500Mbps homeplugs.
As for Google, they only stole data from idiots who ran WiFi with no password protection or encryption. And again sniffers are a non issue with proper encryption. So really all those points are non issues..

bledd · 26 Mar 2013 at 19:24

Russinating said:
Srsly? A £20 pair of Homeplugs vs trunking? He might not even own his flat.

I've used Homeplugs for about 3 years and they're great. Previously there were in a shared flat where the router was downstairs and I'd only get 1 bar on Wireless, now I just use them for my Xbox which is in another room.

Speed's are terrible though

andy_mk3 · 26 Mar 2013 at 20:27

A physical CAT5/6 cable is always going to the the best option where possible!

Homeplugs are down the the wiring in the house, so results vary a lot.

MrMarvelous · 27 Mar 2013 at 00:56

I won't be able to have a wire as it'll mess up the living room. The room upstairs with the computer has a socket right above the one downstairs if that makes sense so basically i'd hazard a guess that it's directly connected from bottom to top.

bremen1874 · 27 Mar 2013 at 02:08

MrMarvelous said:
I won't be able to have a wire as it'll mess up the living room. The room upstairs with the computer has a socket right above the one downstairs if that makes sense so basically i'd hazard a guess that it's directly connected from bottom to top.

If the sockets share the same fuse/breaker then there's a good chance that's how they're wired.

How you considered running an external cable? It's not for everyone, but it can be a lot easier than routing a cable internally.

MrMarvelous · 8 Apr 2013 at 22:51

Sorry for the bump. Managed to get round buying a pair but I have no idea which is the fastest CAT X cable to buy for them? Seems to be a lot of samey looking ones but with different abbreviations, i'm basically looking for the one that will transfer speed the quickest I think.

bremen1874 · 8 Apr 2013 at 22:54

You don't need anything better than Cat5e.

MrMarvelous · 8 Apr 2013 at 23:44

Thank you.

mattyg · 8 Apr 2013 at 23:46

Homeplugs didnt help for me at all. Old house and not the most upto date electrics with a possible earth issue.

I'd just find a way to go wired

MrMarvelous · 8 Apr 2013 at 23:50

I won't be able to as i'd have to drill through the ceiling as there's no way to keep the wires tidy and out of the way for the upstairs bedroom where I plan to have it. I thought about putting the lead through the middle floor windows to the upstairs one but it'll look a mess and probably won't work.

tals · 14 Apr 2013 at 08:05

I have wifi and homeplugs. My own experience is homeplugs provide a more stable connection. I get about 100mb/s out of mine and they (the newer ones) never drop connection.

I would go for the 200mb one's not the 100mb ones which use an earlier standard. The 1gb ones again use an even newer standard but you won't see a speed better than the 200mb ones unless the plugs are on the same circuit from the fuse box which is unlikely between upstairs and downstairs.

I went for the netgear ones and have been happy with them, must have been 4 years plus i have had them.

Other trivia the plugs won't connect between fuse boxes so if you have two then you need to check what they serve. They can be affected by electric issues ie something like the heating coming on can cause them to reconnect. This was true of my original 200mb ones but the ones i got a couple of years ago have never lost a connection. I have 4 plugs making up my house network

Get them if you arn't happy with them then sell them on eBay, not a lot to lose trying them out

Mr-White · 14 Apr 2013 at 11:17

I ditched wireless about 5 years ago as the signal was very poor and went to home hubs. Then about a month a go after 2 failed adapters I'm now using a 10 metre cat5e cable down the stairs - now my entire network is a gig.

MW