Home Networking advice (powerlines etc)

Shawnobi

Shawnobi

Shawnobi

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28 Sep 2012
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3
Trying to work out the best route to upgrade my home network. Currently using Devolo Dlan 500 to send to the 1st and 2nd floor of my house.

There's 200mbps at the router, the first floor Dlan is then seeing 37mbps and the 2nd floor is then seeing 20mbps*. The 2nd floor is where my xbox lives.

Is it worth getting a better Powerline or does that suggest that there is too much interference on my electrical circuitry? If I plug into the same ring as the router/ powerline hub I'm still only seeing 70mbps.

Or would it make more sense to go to a mesh system? How are mesh systems for Gaming? Bearing in mind I'll be at the budget of £100 - £200.
Physical cabling is sadly not a possibility.

Would appreciate some advice.

*All measured with Ookla Speedtest on the same laptop.
 
ChrisD. said:
Why not?
Click to expand...
The loft room would need everything removed to take the interlocking wood flooring out and then removing the T&G boards under that. Then the brick walls would need chasing on the ground and 1st floors then plastering and redecorating.
I'd rather live with 20mpbs than go through that bother right now :)
 
Shawnobi said:
Trying to work out the best route to upgrade my home network. Currently using Devolo Dlan 500 to send to the 1st and 2nd floor of my house.

There's 200mbps at the router, the first floor Dlan is then seeing 37mbps and the 2nd floor is then seeing 20mbps*. The 2nd floor is where my xbox lives.

Is it worth getting a better Powerline or does that suggest that there is too much interference on my electrical circuitry? If I plug into the same ring as the router/ powerline hub I'm still only seeing 70mbps.

Or would it make more sense to go to a mesh system? How are mesh systems for Gaming? Bearing in mind I'll be at the budget of £100 - £200.
Physical cabling is sadly not a possibility.

Would appreciate some advice.

*All measured with Ookla Speedtest on the same laptop.
Click to expand...

I'd probably go with a decent MESH system. The only advice I would give is that I'd turn off WiFi on your router, just use that as a router, and have a separate mesh system.. Trying to combine everything often costs more and IME is always a bit compromised.

Next would be getting creative with some wiring (do you have any outside walls?, drain pipes? Any internal boxed in soil pipes? Any other interconnecting features between floors? Where are all the water/central heating pipes routed?)..

e.g. - Drill out near your router, run two cables under the DPC line, up a drain pipe and ingress near the ceiling on each floor, connect to something like an TP-Link EAP225/EAP245 on each floor (wireless access point). You can use POE injectors to power them remotely via the ethernet cable etc..
Or, if you can be more creative wiring and can get externally between floors neatly, then ingress in the room you want a socket and just chase that in to the wall, drill through to the outside to get the cable in and job's a good 'un..

However, that needs some DIY skills and experience of terminating CAT5E/6 or 6A cables, which is easier than most people think, but daunting! and yes, the ability to chase in wall boxes, or have the tools to drill through 30-40cm of wall is a pre-requisite and that's a tall order for a lot of people!
 
Yes, 200mbps. Measuring just a bit above that. Reading the thread ChrisD linked and I've realised I have an unused (Covered) chimney stack I can use to send cables. So that's the option I'm going to try.
 
It sounds like you've already hit a wall on the throughput of your current powerline devices, that probably use the AV2 networking standard.

You could try a kit of these:
https://www.devolo.co.uk/magic-2-lan/variant/single

These devices use a different networking standard to most other powerline adapters called G.hn, with theoretical speeds upto 2400mbps. In reality, you might get 1/10th or 1/20th of this in actual throughput. Looking at some user reviews, upto 200mbps does seem achievable in some homes.

They shouldn't be mixed and matched with other types of powerline adapter (which use the Homeplug AV2 standard generally).

This is the non Wifi variant, I'd stick with those personally, as they are a bit cheaper, around £115 for a kit of 2 devices. Buy them somewhere that will let you send them back, if they don't work as well as you'd hope.

Either that, or run outdoor grade ethernet cables on the outside walls of your house, if possible. Ethernet might be a better option in the long run, as Cat6 and Cat6A support 10gbps throughput.
 
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