Cheap Mesh vs Powerline Setup

[Musty]

I know this question will have been asked a million times (and have searched through some of the previous posts) but I thought I'd ask for my specific setup.

 

I have a wireless router on the ground floor that gives most of the house decent coverage, and can get the max of 100Mb/s in most rooms.

 

The exception is the office in an extension upstairs. There is a partition wall and a solid wall between it and router.

 

My connection maxes out at about 5-10Mb/s.  

 

Unfortunately, that is the only space for my desk and running an ethernet cable directly (I know this is the best solution) isn't an option at the moment.

 

Any suggestions on powerline vs mesh systems? I'd like something reasonably stable... the office is use for games as well as work.

 

This is in a brick house in the UK, built in ~58 but the wiring has been updated more recently.

 

Thanks!

 

[BecauseRussia]

I would personally try a powerline system. From what I understand about powerline is performance depends on how "clean" the electrical circuit is. Since you have newer wiring, there is a good chance that it will work well for you.

 

The problem with mesh systems is you get what you pay for, if you buy a cheaper mesh solution you are going to get the level of performance that you pay for. With wireless mesh systems that do not use an Ethernet back haul have to use a WiFi back haul. Higher-end mesh systems have a dedicated back haul channel, lower end ones do not. So, the performance you will get out of it will at most be half of what you could from the original router.

 

Since you are looking for more stability the best answer to that especially in a brick house will be Ethernet. So, I would try the powerline adapter.

[Musty]

On 3/12/2021 at 6:51 PM, BecauseRussia said:

I would personally try a powerline system. From what I understand about powerline is performance depends on how "clean" the electrical circuit is. Since you have newer wiring, there is a good chance that it will work well for you.

 

The problem with mesh systems is you get what you pay for, if you buy a cheaper mesh solution you are going to get the level of performance that you pay for. With wireless mesh systems that do not use an Ethernet back haul have to use a WiFi back haul. Higher-end mesh systems have a dedicated back haul channel, lower end ones do not. So, the performance you will get out of it will at most be half of what you could from the original router.

 

Since you are looking for more stability the best answer to that especially in a brick house will be Ethernet. So, I would try the powerline adapter.

Thanks, pretty much what I was worried about with mesh. To get decent performance I'd have to go for a more expensive option than I can really afford. 

On 3/12/2021 at 7:23 PM, Benji said:

...And how much other devices interfere. Power-hungry devices and older devices (or specific kinds of power supplies in these older devices) tend to massively interfere and the connection can go to crap. Every evening that our older Plasma TV got turned on the connection was almost de facto dead. I don't recommend powerline at all (which is why I bit the bullet and bought a long Ethernet cable). Not to mention that amateur radio dislikes it because due to the non-isolated nature of power cabling, the powerline adapters turn the entire electrical wiring in your house into a huge antenna and interfere. You can actually have the Bundesnetzagentur in Germany (agency for networking and telecommunications) contact you and forbid you to use them when someone complains about interference and it can be traced back to your powerline (which isn't that hard). Also, neighbours might be able to use your connection when it's not encrypted due to that mechanism. It is really more of a "I'm too lazy to lay cables once and have a stable connection forever", temporary solution kind of thing.

I already have a long ethernet but my issue is that I'm not allowed to drill any holes to run it through. It is long enough that I might be able to route it nicely along skirting boards etc. I'm still considering it, but I'd much rather hook it up properly. 

 

I got a powerline from a friend to test the performance. It is very strange. This model (AV1000 Gigabit Powerline Starter Kit) has ethernet and wifi. I'm getting a relatively sluggish 10Mb/s when using the ethernet connection to the adaptor, but the full 100Mb/s I was hoping for when connecting to the the WiFii from it.  Both of them rock solid and stable. Why on earth would the wireless connection be faster than the wired one? 

 

 

[Musty]

30 minutes ago, Benji said:

I don't understand the concept right now. Did you not connect your adapter via Powerline but just as a regular wireless repeater (if that is even an option)? Or what do you mean?

Me either at the moment. 

 

Basically I have one adapter directly connected to the router. The recieving adapter upstairs is connected to it by powerline. It has an ethernet output, as well as broadcasting a wireless network. My understanding is that the wireless network is broadcast from the powerline connection as well, rather than acting as a normal repeater. Edit: With that setup, connecting directly to the receiving adapter (the extender i guess is the correct term) by ethernet (cat5) gives me 10Mb/s, and by WiFi gives me 100Mb/s.

[Musty]

4 minutes ago, Benji said:

That's really odd, because in that case the powerline adapter near you is creating both the WiFi and also powering the integrated Ethernet port(s) via the powerline connection and not just as a wireless repeater.

Are you maybe mixing up MB/s (bytes) and Mb/s (bits)?

That was my first thought as well, but it was definitely Mb/s.

 

Whatever it was, it weirdly seems to have... resolved itself for now? 

 

My only thought is that maybe it was prioritising one over the other? Or maybe in some kind of powersaving mode?

 

That is all I can come up with really. Not a good explanation at all. The previous tests were done within seconds of each other and reproducibly showing those differences. 

 

Still, seems to be working well for now. Thanks for the advice!

[Columbo]

I am a powerline expert. 7 or 8 experience with 3 different powerline kits. You only want 1 to 1 powerline connections. Even though powerline supports more than a base and receiver unit you only want one. You only want to plug a powerline base into it's own wall outlet with nothing else connected. The receiver end unit should be the only piece plugged into the wall. That reduces any interference. An AV1000/1200/2000 will produce 150-175mbps download and similar upload speeds using gigabit router/switches. I know the theoretical speeds say they are greater. Running internet through them is what most people do. Your rated speed will be 320-400mbps which you have to halve for real world speeds. 

 

Very similar to a direct ethernet connection, not quite as good but much better than wifi. A mesh network with a wired backhaul is the next best option. Powerline is very much misunderstood and underrated. Another good solution would be MOCA 2 but that is expensive. That will push 1gbps.