Second router setup via powerline

[Onw]

Hello, I have a cable coming from roof into my router through some power/data dongle - the cable from roof goes in there, you power it and from that goes another ethernet cable into the router. The router has 4 ports and from one of them is going ethernet to my PC. We have brick walls so just 2 rooms, where my chromecast is, the wifi isn't really good enough to stream HD constantly. Now for my question: I'd like to use the thing that carries ethernet over the powerline, but can I just plug in another ethernet cable from my router and then on the other side put it into a new router and it would work? or do I have to give up on my first router and replace it with a switch? anything else I should look for?

Thanks for all your answers, sorry I'm not good at networking.

P.S.: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ethernet+over+power&crid=3O7TPR2NO9UEW&sprefix=ethernet+over+%2Caps%2C242&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14 something like this, just for our socket.

[SupaKomputa]

get a wifi extender with a lan cable, it should be better than a powerline.

[Onw]

29 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

get a wifi extender with a lan cable, it should be better than a powerline.

Yeah, I have a wifi extender, there is not any cable going into it, the thing is I don't want a cable to go through our flat, lying on the ground. Is this what you meant?

[OnePlane]

Don't get a second router (you don't need routing) but get an Access Point. Most consumer routers are basically a combination of a router, firewall, switch and access point. Problem with using more than one of those in a home network is that some parts of the network will be unreachable from the other side.

 

For a simple/cheap setup, get a power line adapter set where one side also has WiFi built in. It's practically a power line adapter with a small access point built in. One of the well known brands around here is Devolo, but other brands like TP-Link are fine as well. Problem is that the more off-brand devices are the older the chipset is, and almost all of the power line adapters use the same vendor for their chipsets. So the only way to get 'better' connectivity is to get the 'good' chips from that vendor. And it's mostly the bigger brands that get those.

 

Example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X6HXXFQ/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4

 

The small unit with the single network port at the bottom goes near your router, you plug a network cable between the two. The bigger one goes to the place where you want better WiFi and perhaps even wired networking. After plugging in and sometimes pushing the sync button on both ends you can setup the wifi part. It will be described in the manual that comes with that stuff, but usually it boils down to:

 

1. find the IP address (your router's web page will most likely have a list of devices, but the vendor probably has a discovery tool you can download as well)

2. log in to the webpage of the power line adapter

3. setup wifi in ap/hotspot/passthrough mode and set a SSID (network name) and password (make sure it doesn't have NAT and DHCP server on, only your router is supposed to do that)

 

Then you're done and you can re-connect your chromecast to that wifi network you just set up in step 3 and streaming should be much better. Often, the power line webpage or support application you can download has some indication as how fast the speed between the power line adapter is, as that varies depending on your wiring in the house and any interference from outside.

 

[SupaKomputa]

6 minutes ago, Onw said:

Yeah, I have a wifi extender, there is not any cable going into it, the thing is I don't want a cable to go through our flat, lying on the ground. Is this what you meant?

wifi extender can work wirelessly, maybe you can put it where the signal starts to drop in half then add another extender to boost it like a daisy chain.

[OnePlane]

Just now, SupaKomputa said:

wifi extender can work wirelessly, maybe you can put it where the signal starts to drop in half then add another extender to boost it like a daisy chain.

Depending on the kind of 'extending' it does, it could dramatically degrade the performance. WDS for example halves the bandwidth and doubles the latency every hop it has to make. Some 'repeaters' are actually a wireless client, network bridge and access point in one, but the vendor doesn't put that on the box as that's not easy to market/sell as people won't know what that means. If it is a client+ap then it can actually work out great, and indeed, putting it in the middle will offer a reasonable solution, provided there is enough bandwidth left halfway through.

[Onw]

Thank you very much,so the bigger distributes wifi as well right? Just one more question, what are these NAT and DHCP things? Are they turn on/off things?

[Onw]

5 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

wifi extender can work wirelessly, maybe you can put it where the signal starts to drop in half then add another extender to boost it like a daisy chain.

Yeah, that's what I meant, it's wireless, the thing is I can't really put it anywhere in between these two rooms, and just one wall blocks it off, and on the extender wifi I have half download/upload. Thank you very much for answering, I appreciate any help

[Onw]

6 minutes ago, OnePlane said:

Depending on the kind of 'extending' it does, it could dramatically degrade the performance. WDS for example halves the bandwidth and doubles the latency every hop it has to make. Some 'repeaters' are actually a wireless client, network bridge and access point in one, but the vendor doesn't put that on the box as that's not easy to market/sell as people won't know what that means. If it is a client+ap then it can actually work out great, and indeed, putting it in the middle will offer a reasonable solution, provided there is enough bandwidth left halfway through.

Thank you very much,so the bigger distributes wifi as well right? Just one more question, what are these NAT and DHCP things? Are they turn on/off things?

[SupaKomputa]

Just now, Onw said:

Thank you very much,so the bigger distributes wifi as well right? Just one more question, what are these NAT and DHCP things? Are they turn on/off things?

No guarantee the "bigger" will be better, but the ones with additional antennas could be better.

DHCP is the one who assign the local IP Address, usually it's the routers job. 

NAT is the one who allowed access to the internet. this one usually build in the modem.

 

WAN (the internet) --> NAT + ROUTER --> LAN

[Onw]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

No guarantee the "bigger" will be better, but the ones with additional antennas could be better.

DHCP is the one who assign the local IP Address, usually it's the routers job. 

NAT is the one who allowed access to the internet. this one usually build in the modem.

 

WAN (the internet) --> NAT + ROUTER --> LAN

I meant the bigger device on the photo on the link  Thanks for the explanation, so I how can I make sure it wouldn't have that?

[Onw]

9 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

No guarantee the "bigger" will be better, but the ones with additional antennas could be better.

DHCP is the one who assign the local IP Address, usually it's the routers job. 

NAT is the one who allowed access to the internet. this one usually build in the modem.

 

WAN (the internet) --> NAT + ROUTER --> LAN

 

24 minutes ago, OnePlane said:

Don't get a second router (you don't need routing) but get an Access Point. Most consumer routers are basically a combination of a router, firewall, switch and access point. Problem with using more than one of those in a home network is that some parts of the network will be unreachable from the other side.

 

For a simple/cheap setup, get a power line adapter set where one side also has WiFi built in. It's practically a power line adapter with a small access point built in. One of the well known brands around here is Devolo, but other brands like TP-Link are fine as well. Problem is that the more off-brand devices are the older the chipset is, and almost all of the power line adapters use the same vendor for their chipsets. So the only way to get 'better' connectivity is to get the 'good' chips from that vendor. And it's mostly the bigger brands that get those.

 

Example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X6HXXFQ/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4

 

The small unit with the single network port at the bottom goes near your router, you plug a network cable between the two. The bigger one goes to the place where you want better WiFi and perhaps even wired networking. After plugging in and sometimes pushing the sync button on both ends you can setup the wifi part. It will be described in the manual that comes with that stuff, but usually it boils down to:

 

1. find the IP address (your router's web page will most likely have a list of devices, but the vendor probably has a discovery tool you can download as well)

2. log in to the webpage of the power line adapter

3. setup wifi in ap/hotspot/passthrough mode and set a SSID (network name) and password (make sure it doesn't have NAT and DHCP server on, only your router is supposed to do that)

 

Then you're done and you can re-connect your chromecast to that wifi network you just set up in step 3 and streaming should be much better. Often, the power line webpage or support application you can download has some indication as how fast the speed between the power line adapter is, as that varies depending on your wiring in the house and any interference from outside.

 

So, something like this shoud work? https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV1000Mbps-Powerline-WiFi-Extender/dp/B0725LPTZR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=TP-Link+TL-WPA7510+KIT&qid=1572201916&s=electronics&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=1-1

[SupaKomputa]

someone make a thorough review here, it worked, but dont expect too much. And if you're house power installation is bad, the signal will be worse than that.

 

[Onw]

7 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

someone make a thorough review here, it worked, but dont expect too much. And if you're house power installation is bad, the signal will be worse than that.

 

I dunno, the main purpose of this is to replace the wireless range extender which gives me half aka from 30-35 → 10-20 both upload and download. If I try to stream a video, the quality isn't very good, I'd say max 480p for few mins. Do you think, that this would be able to help me / maybe but I'd have to test it / no not at all?

[SupaKomputa]

20MB/s should be around 160 mbps.

yeah it should be enough to stream 4k youtube.

[Onw]

18 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

20MB/s should be around 160 mbps.

yeah it should be enough to stream 4k youtube.

The numbers are in Mbit not MB unfortunately.

[SupaKomputa]

if i'm not mistaken the numbers is in MB (Mega Bytes)

[Onw]

17 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

if i'm not mistaken the numbers is in MB (Mega Bytes)

Oh, his, ofc, mb. So is this enough to stream from mobile phone thru chromecast?

[SupaKomputa]

pretty much

[Onw]

23 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

pretty much

Ok, thank you very much for spending time with me, I really appreciate it 

[OnePlane]

Yes, those kits you linked for amazon will work. If you order form somewhere with a no-questions-asked return policy you should be pretty safe trying one out. The type you should go for is the highest power line type (on Amazon for one of the TP link models they use the AV1000, AV2000 etc. designation). Higher number = better PowerLine transmission.

[Gronnie]

If you have coax at both locations then current gen MoCA is much better than Powerline.

 

I have these and they give a solid Gigabit connection: https://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Bonded-Ethernet-Adapter-ECB6200K02/dp/B013J7O3X0/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=moca+adapter&qid=1572367826&sr=8-3