Powerline scam?

Camoxide

Camoxide

Camoxide

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7 Aug 2014
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Those of you interested in powerline adapters may have noticed many being advertised at 200-500mbps often having to pay extra for the 500mbps.

Having recently gotten 152Mbps internet I was wondering why my wired connection over powerline was only getting 50Mbps where as my wireless connection was hitting 140Mbps.

Turns out that the vast majority of powerline adapters use a 10/100mbps connection so it's literally impossible for them to even get close to the advertised 500 or even 200mbps speed.

How are they getting away with this? It's clearly false advertising.

The good news is that there is some out there with a Gigabit connection though! I've borrowed my friends gigabit powerline adapter and have managed to hit 150Mbps so they do indeed work much better than the 10/100 ones.
 
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I assume you're just trolling, but...

It isn't false advertising, you just apparently don't properly understand what the 200Mbps or 500Mbps is referring to.

Even where Powerline adapters have Gigabit ports (the majority of the current generation) they aren't really necessary. It isn't usually the Ethernet port speed that's the limiting factor.
 
bremen1874 said:
I assume you're just trolling, but...

It isn't false advertising, you just apparently don't properly understand what the 200Mbps or 500Mbps is referring to.

Even where Powerline adapters have Gigabit ports (the majority of the current generation) they aren't really necessary. It isn't usually the Ethernet port speed that's the limiting factor.
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If they're using a 100Mbps port how can they advertise at being rated at 200Mbps when they can't accept incoming data that fast though?

Even if the internals play a large factor in what speed they operate at how can they possibly achieve higher than 100Mbps?

I assume the advertised speed is the theoretical maximum the adapters can transfer data to each other. But how can they achieve that when they can't input data that fast?
 
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Mainly because that's the duplex speed. A 100Mbps Ethernet port will handle 200Mbps (100Mbps in each direction).

Also, all network speeds are quoted at the physical level (PHY).

With anything except a wired connection the actual throughput you see is only going to be a fraction of the PHY rate.

This means that even AV500 adapters usually top out at about 80Mbps for a single direction transfer, which is well inside what a 100Mbps Ethernet port will handle.

The latest AV600 adapters are now at the point where they can need Gigabit ports (which they have), but only under ideal conditions.

The quoted vs. actual speed issue applies equally to Wi-Fi.
 
bremen1874 said:
Mainly because that's the duplex speed. A 100Mbps Ethernet port will handle 200Mbps (100Mbps in each direction).

Also, all network speeds are quoted at the physical level (PHY).

With anything except a wired connection the actual throughput you see is only going to be a fraction of the PHY rate.

This means that even AV500 adapters usually top out at about 80Mbps for a single direction transfer, which is well inside what a 100Mbps Ethernet port will handle.

The latest AV600 adapters are now at the point where they can need Gigabit ports (which they have), but only under ideal conditions.

The quoted vs. actual speed issue applies equally to Wi-Fi.
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Thanks for the explanation

But I still don't agree with them advertising Powerline adapters at 200Mbps and 500Mbps because the average consumer will just go for the cheapest 200Mbps adapter as their internet speed will likely be sub 100Mbps.
I mean the slowest broadband speed Virgin Media sell is 50Mbps and even that's close to being bottlenecked by an AV200 "200Mbps" powerline adapter.
 
I'd agree that it's unfortunate how both Powerline and Wi-Fi speeds are advertised. It is however strictly speaking accurate, and marketing departments like big numbers.
 
That doesn't really help when the 200Mbps they're quoting isn't the 200Mbps the customer thinks it is.

Up to 200Mbps (PHY rate) doesn't really prepare the customer to expect the actual throughput, as reported by the OS, to be 50Mbps or less.

In an ideal world the HomePlug Alliance would enforce some sort of standardised testing and labelling, but I can't see that happening.
 
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