Adding an extra pair of EoP?

[Mork DOrk]

Hey guys! (TL;DR available)

I currently have an EoP set-up from my modem to a secondary router in another room about 30m away, however desipite the EoP being rated 500mbps (which is supposed to be 10MB/s correct?), I'm only getting ~4.5 MB/s.
My ISP provides 100 mbps, and my wireless speeds at the modem reach ~95, however over the EoP the maximum I get is between 45 and 50 mbps. Wireless is not an option for my PC, as there are too many double-brick walls between the PC and modem.

I will suggest a theoretical solution, and if anyone can tell me if it will work/have tried it before:
 

Say I have a pair of Ethernet over power devices that are 200m apart and i will call them A and B. Say the speed A receives from the internet modem is 100Mbps, however there is a loss of 20 Mbps over the EoP connection.

It I place another pair of EoPs (called C and D) between A and B*, would this reduce the amount of bandwidth loss over the network?

*(where A would connect to C 100m apart, and then C connects to D directly next to C, which then links to B 100m away)






 

TL;DR would adding a second pair of ethernet over power adapters between a current set reduce speed loss over the network?

[Oshino Shinobu]

What model powerline do you have?

 

2 minutes ago, Mork DOrk said:

It I place another pair of EoPs (called C and D) between A and B*, would this reduce the amount of bandwidth loss over the network?

*(where A would connect to C 100m apart, and then C connects to D directly next to C, which then links to B 100m away)

I cannot say for certain as I have never tried it myself, but I doubt it. The issue is likely going to be the distance of wire it's travelling over, or interference along that wire. adding more points between that would likely make it worse. 

[brwainer]

adding more EoP adaptors would do nothing to improve the throughput between A and B because the Powerline standards (both homeplug and g.hn) use unicast-type messaging, and they don't (AFAIK) do retransmission. Even if you could get the retransmission to work, I would expect it to still be a net loss in performance versus what you have now.

[Mork DOrk]

Ah okay, makes sense then! Thank you.

Also, does the brand/quality of the actual powerline units change the bandwidth loss that much?
I currently have a pair of Netcomm NP505F's (500 mbps). If I were to purchase a gigabit pair, such as TP-Link TL-PA7010P, would I notice any benefits?

Thanks!

[brwainer]

Just now, Mork DOrk said:

Ah okay, makes sense then! Thank you.

Also, does the brand/quality of the actual powerline units change the bandwidth loss that much?
I currently have a pair of Netcomm NP505F's (500 mbps). If I were to purchase a gigabit pair, such as TP-Link TL-PA7010P, would I notice any benefits?

Thanks!

I couldn't find exact details about this model (Netcomm NP505F), but they appear to be based on the "Homeplug AV" standard. the TP-Link TL-PA7010P on the otherhand are "Homeplug AV2". The difference, other than being able to use tricks to increase the transfer rate, is that AV2 adds the ability to communicate through the ground wiring in addition to the normal hot/neutral power lines. This means that transfer rates can be increased (using a form of MIMO) and stability is improved. While you can mix different versions of HomePlug adaptors, I would recommend buying and using the new pair, and removing the old pair entirely, or using the old pair for locations where you aren't concerned about the speed.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Mork DOrk said:

Ah okay, makes sense then! Thank you.

Also, does the brand/quality of the actual powerline units change the bandwidth loss that much?
I currently have a pair of Netcomm NP505F's (500 mbps). If I were to purchase a gigabit pair, such as TP-Link TL-PA7010P, would I notice any benefits?

Thanks!

Ah, as I suspected. Your powerline adaptors use a 100Mbps Ethernet port. Regardless of how good the wiring was, you'd never get any more than 100Mbps out of them. It's fairly common among consumer oriented networking stuff, particularly powerline kits. 

 

The TP-Link TL-PA7010P actually uses gigabit ports, so there's a chance you could see improvements, but powerline is very dependant on the quality and distance of the wiring in the building, as well as any interference and such. If the wiring is the problem, switching powerline adaptors will likely not help. I would try moving your adaptors around the different sockets in the building to see how the speed changes. If it improves close to 100Mbps, you may want to consider moving to the TP-Link TL-PA7010P. 

[Mork DOrk]

Ah bless! Thank you so much for your answers, the both of you. Very helpful.
I'll pick up a pair and see how it goes

And Oshino, sadly in Australia, 100 is the highest standard for home networks, so I cant expect any more than that anyway :'( 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, Mork DOrk said:

Ah bless! Thank you so much for your answers, the both of you. Very helpful.
I'll pick up a pair and see how it goes

And Oshino, sadly in Australia, 100 is the highest standard for home networks, so I cant expect any more than that anyway :'( 

Local transfers are still a thing though (: I'm still waiting for 10 Gigabit to get cheaper so I can redo the network at home and actually put some SSDs in my NAS. 

[brwainer]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Ah, as I suspected. Your powerline adaptors use a 100Mbps Ethernet port.

I completely forgot to check this part! Thankfully, almost all of the Homeplug AV2 based models use gigabit ports, since they normally are 600Mbps and higher rated.

[Mork DOrk]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

Local transfers are still a thing though (: I'm still waiting for 10 Gigabit to get cheaper so I can redo the network at home and actually put some SSDs in my NAS. 

I wish I had anything worth transferring at those speeds 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, brwainer said:

I completely forgot to check this part! Thankfully, almost all of the Homeplug AV2 based models use gigabit ports, since they normally are 600Mbps and higher rated.

It's frustrating that so many consumer grade networking components do this. Things like APs and powerline are particularly bad, advertising "500Mbps" but then using 100Mbps ports -.-

 

 

[brwainer]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

It's frustrating that so many consumer grade networking components do this. Things like APs and powerline are particularly bad, advertising "500Mbps" but then using 100Mbps ports -.-

 

 

yes I have seen and owned quite a few N300 and N600 routers that had 100Mb ports..... I've actually been able to get >150Mb/s between two wireless clients on one N600 router whose LAN ports were 100Mb.