Powerline Infinity conundrum

Yannic · 14 Aug 2012 at 21:03

Hello, I am having an issue with some 200MB powerline adapters.

I was a happy chappy running on ADSL2 from BT, getting about 7Mbit downstream and 1.5 up. However we just upgraded to Infinity and I now know I have about 56Mbit down and 18up at the router.

The problem is that I use a pair of TP Link 200Mb adapters to go up to my office on the top floor which is where I have the main machines and the NAS.

The TV is set up on the router downstairs.

The issue I have is what you see below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkm8dwqiteq5ne0/Untitled.png

on the right, you see the speed I get in the office over the adapters.

On the left, you see what I get on the 1st floor of the house, presumably on the same loop in the power system? The router is on the ground floor of the house.

I would ultimately like to get atleast the 56Mb up to the office from the router via the powerline.

Would getting a pair of 500Mb adapters fix this issue? Or does anyone know that I am not likely to get a direct improvement. The only other option is to drill down a wire from the top floor all the way to the bottom to run a gigabit wire which I would rather not do unless I have no other choice.

This is my breaker box in the garage. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m59wa24wo3d36ml/IMAG0450.jpg

Thanks for any assistance.

oh and one more thing, the wireless up to the top floor from the BT homehub 3 is producing about 18Mb of throughput, slightly less than the powerline adapters.

Iain

Steveocee · 14 Aug 2012 at 21:27

It seems a bit of a steep drop in speed but never the less I don't think higher transfer rate adapters will help as you're not maxing them with 56mbps of throughput.
Make the effort and run a Cat6 down, worth it in the long run.

Yannic · 15 Aug 2012 at 12:33

Yes I suppose you are right. I did have an idea over night that I could use one of the phone extension points which go from the master socket to the office and use the old extension cable (3 pair) to attach to the cat 5 and pull it through the stud wall. However - after poking about inside the partition wall for the last 2 hours trying to follow the cable along - I gave up. I guess when it annoys me enough, I will drill a hole outside from the lougne and back in on the top floor for a bit of cat 6.

I also read about some cheeky chap that used a phone cable and a powerline adapter to create about 220Mb throuput over the phone cable however they had to use a transformer and some other parts. Still, a cool idea. A company should release a dedicated kit with a pair of RJ45 to RJ11 converters which run up to 20m or so over the RJ11 cable. Loads of houses upgrading to infinity or fiber have this issue where the phone extension lead already exists but powerline adapters have to go on separate power loops. That and they dont want to run ethernet.

Hmm

Yannic · 15 Aug 2012 at 12:38

hang on a minute, is it possible to run ethernet over 3 pair phone cables? I actually have a 3 pair phone extension running up to the top of the house where the office is.

EDIT1: After some digging I found this post:

"Cat5 cable has 4 pair of wires, two pairs are needed for 10/100 ethernet:

TX+
TX-
RX+
RX-
"

So could I use 2 of the pairs in my extension lead to run a 100Mb cable upstairs?

ci_newman · 15 Aug 2012 at 13:44

In theory it is possible, but the quality of the cable is inferior and liable to introduce problems. It won't cost very much to stick a connector on the end and try it though.

Scope · 15 Aug 2012 at 14:45

I noticed major differences between some of the points in my house (running 5*200mb homeplugs). Initially I bought 2*500 plugs to run between the 2 points where I wanted to improve speed (server and TV), but I saw little difference between the 200 and the 500 units in those 2 room.. In other rooms I saw a massive improvement. The point I am trying to make is that the different is noticeable if the cabling is good, but if you already have problems buying a 500 unit wont make that much difference..

I returned my 500mb units for a refund and pulled a CAT5e cable instead - now I enjoy gigabit network between the 2 points. (And I wish I had pulled the cable years ago.. lol)

Yannic · 15 Aug 2012 at 16:01

Thanks for the help all. I believe the 100Mbit line would have worked on the phone cable. I dont see any reason why it wouldnt. However, I got bored and finally drilled 2 holes outside and ran the cable under the carpet. Not a bad job but very nice finally getting 56Mbit and 14 ping on the main PC and the NAS.

:-)