How to Speed Up Network?

[Prokart2000]

Hi guys

 

So im currently at uni living in a house with 5 other people and me and my mate live furthest from our router.

 

We have the Virgin M350 package but we get very slow speeds from our rooms so I used some old bits I had laying around. I used a pair of tplink 600mbps powerlines and an old tplink router. This made the speeds better but it isnt the best still and would like to get it higher.

 

I downloaded the tplink software and our "powerline rate" is 112mbps but my download straight from the powerline into my computers ethernet is around 42mbps. Am i right in assuming that getting powerlines capable of higher speeds (for example one that can do 1200mbps) would increase the speeds or is this not how it works?

 

The plan was to get some better powerlines but also a better router to try to get closer to the downstairs speeds.

 

Obviously being students we would like to do this on the best budget possible.

 

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Feel free to ask any questions if required.

 

Many thanks

 

Kieran 

 

[Slottr]

3 minutes ago, Prokart2000 said:

Am i right in assuming that getting powerlines capable of higher speeds (for example one that can do 1200mbps) would increase the speeds or is this not how it works?

It depends on the houses electrical, and how old it is. You may have better luck routing a 200ft ethernet cable through some vents or something

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

It depends on the houses electrical, and how old it is. You may have better luck routing a 200ft ethernet cable through some vents or something

Yah, if OP is at the limits of the wiring then better powerline adapters won't really do anything that I would consider an improvement outside of margin of error. It's worth a shot IF you can return them later but if you can't return them then I would look at alternatives like a cable as slottr suggested.

[Prokart2000]

2 minutes ago, Slottr said:

It depends on the houses electrical, and how old it is. You may have better luck routing a 200ft ethernet cable through some vents or something

Honestly I think that might be a better idea, get some things to stick onto the walls and cable manage it and then purchase a new router

[Slottr]

2 minutes ago, Prokart2000 said:

Honestly I think that might be a better idea, get some things to stick onto the walls and cable manage it and then purchase a new router

If it's a rental property, you can get adhesive cable mounts that shouldn't damage paint

[Prokart2000]

Just now, Slottr said:

If it's a rental property, you can get adhesive cable mounts that shouldn't damage paint

Yeah it is, luckily we have a really long ethernet and just tried this hypothesis and its awesome. It seems the router is a bottleneck so think we will get some of those clips and a new router. Thank You for the help

[Senzelian]

If you can run a cable directly, then do it. It's always the cheapest, fastest and most reliable ethernet link possible.

 

The key to good Wi-Fi is often better placement of your hardware, instead of buying new hardware.
I see lots of people that have their router burried in a corner or have the antennas pointing the wrong direction.

And if you are going to upgrade your Wi-Fi, then don't necessarily do it with a new router and instead get a dedicated access point, which you can hang somewhere high up onto the wall or the ceiling for better coverage.

 

P.S. powerline sucks