Powerline Networking... reviews are hard to find!

[Toadster]

I'm really contemplating Powerline networking in my house because:

1.) I have a slab floor, no basement to run cabling underneath
2.) I have lots of vaulted ceilings and computers near the edge of the exterior walls - no way to run power via the ceiling from the 2nd floor without hacking it up
3.) there is a LOT of power cabling in my home, but no CAT-5
4.) WiFi does 'ok' - but getting FAIR connectivity at the other end of the house

the problem is that most of the reviews I'm finding are at least a year old...

Netgear has a new 500Mbps set of adapters (announced at CES 2010) - but I'll be damned if I can find them anywhere... most likely will go with the 200Mbps models then.

I've heard you can't mix brands - so I want one that WORKS all the time and give me the ability to expand throughout the home if needed...

thoughts? ideas? links?

 

[Eug]

I saw a review on the "Gigabit" powerline networking adapters, and while at absolute top speed they were faster, they were much more susceptible to line noise, and ended up being slower than the Powerline AV ("200 Mbps") hardware. For this reason, and because the AV ("200 Mbps") hardware is cheaper, I would recommend getting those.

The AV hardware should be interoperable across brands, but it may be smart to get a single brand just in case. Get a pair of for example Netgear Powerline AV stuff to try it out. If it works well in your setup, then get more.

Just realize you won't get anywhere near advertised speeds. In fact, I believe most of the so-called 200 Mbps hardware actually has 100 Mbps ports anyway. Speed also depends on your wiring age and topography. Also, never plug them into power bars. That blocks the signal. And when you set them up, be sure to change the password.

 

[Eug]

This review compares Belkin Gigabit vs. Netgear AV, and the Netgear wins overall.

 

[JackMDS]

LOl, if you will ask Ron White he probably will say: "You can Not review stupid". :hmm:

 

[dmoney1980]

I'm really contemplating Powerline networking in my house because:

1.) I have a slab floor, no basement to run cabling underneath
2.) I have lots of vaulted ceilings and computers near the edge of the exterior walls - no way to run power via the ceiling from the 2nd floor without hacking it up
3.) there is a LOT of power cabling in my home, but no CAT-5
4.) WiFi does 'ok' - but getting FAIR connectivity at the other end of the house

the problem is that most of the reviews I'm finding are at least a year old...

Netgear has a new 500Mbps set of adapters (announced at CES 2010) - but I'll be damned if I can find them anywhere... most likely will go with the 200Mbps models then.

I've heard you can't mix brands - so I want one that WORKS all the time and give me the ability to expand throughout the home if needed...

thoughts? ideas? links?

I purchased the Belkin kit in early 2010, they were spotty so I returned them (on and off like a bad iphone signal). Picked up a pair of Netgears (egg link below) and they have worked flawlessly from day 1...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122259

 

[Eug]

^^^ Those are the old 85 Mbps units. The ones I was recommending were the 200 Mbps versions:

Netgear Powerline AV+ or Netgear Powerline AV

 

[Emulex]

sucks.sucks.sucks.sucks.

They range from 90% to 99% packet loss. so with udp 90% at 200mbps could work.

tcp/ip not so forgiving.

There is a new brand out that uses MIMO technology (mesh) so with 3 units two will send a signal to third if applicable to bring more error correctly.

You can count on it being not enough to stream a dvd iso movie consistenly.

any device/brick/vacuum/ceiling fan can drop it to 0mbps

Must plug into the wall directly - bringing a power spike into your ethernet network.

 

[newaj]

I know a power line that really works, it is PLTE200 of Linksys. You just need to make sure that they are connected on a same circuit.

 

[Eug]

sucks.sucks.sucks.sucks.

They range from 90% to 99% packet loss. so with udp 90% at 200mbps could work.

tcp/ip not so forgiving.

There is a new brand out that uses MIMO technology (mesh) so with 3 units two will send a signal to third if applicable to bring more error correctly.

You can count on it being not enough to stream a dvd iso movie consistenly.

any device/brick/vacuum/ceiling fan can drop it to 0mbps

Must plug into the wall directly - bringing a power spike into your ethernet network.

For the setup in my house which went through two breaker boxes, I could not stream a DVD ISO movie consistently. You're right that noise on the line dropped the speed, which was low to begin with - ~35 Mbps, dropping to below 10 Mbps with noise on the line.

It was usually not a problem going from one room to another on the same breaker box though, as the speed was much higher.

It wouldn't usually drop to zero though. To put it another way, streaming music or surfing the internet was basically always fine, but streaming HD video wasn't. You're also right about the potential for power spikes on the Ethernet network.

At Newegg, the average review score is 5 stars. They can't be that bad if the reviews are that good. It doesn't work for absolutely everyone, but for those that it works for, they usually love it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-233-_-Product

Pros: runs fairly cool and VERY steady, i've never even seen one hiccup when streaming video, vs constant problems with wireless. it seems fairly resiliant after a year+ of power spikes/outages with no noticeable complications to the unit.

the push-button encryption is a nice feature. included software is not required, it's truly 'plug and play'.

Cons: as others have mentioned, current spikes from compressors/vacuum cleaners could cause issue for this medium, but this unit is no more susceptible than any other powerline network unit.

200Mbps is not a measure of the network exchange you will get, but a measure of the max transfer rate possible through the wall. especially if using tcp and/or duplex communication, expect 16-36 Mbps on this 10/100 connected device (depending on the distance of the outlets).

Other Thoughts: i live in a condo where running wire isn't an option and i needed a solution to stream 1080p content to my media box. wireless N achieved well above the rate i needed, however it fluctuated too wildly which is not acceptable for media streaming. the ether-over-power option works great because it is so reliable, though at a lower bandwidth than N. if you're need is to maximize average bandwidth, this may not be the device for you.

I know a power line that really works, it is PLTE200 of Linksys.

That's another 85 Mbps product. They are reportedly less consistent than the 200 Mbps products.

You just need to make sure that they are connected on a same circuit.

They don't need to be on the same circuit. If they must be on the same circuit, then they're much less useful, cuz just going to the next room usually means going to a different circuit.

On my "200 Mbps" equipment I was getting awesome speeds (comparable to 100 Mbps Ethernet) on the same circuit, but that was just for testing purposes. Staying on the same circuit meant I could go as far as the plug on the other side of the same room. In that context I can usually just run $5 worth of Ethernet cable along the wall to the other side of the room and forget about Powerline completely.

 

[Toadster]

wow - mixed bag of reviews here! should be very interesting to check out though...

I ended up grabbing a set of the Netgeat x2501 adapters
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122360

the 200Mbps parts are 100Mpbs full duplex, so I realize it won't ever be '200' - I'm happy if I can pull down 40-50Mbps; my ISP link is only 18Mbps so no worries there

Thanks! We should keep this thread going as I don't really see a 'convergence' of powerline threads here!

 

[Loop2kil]

I have the Zyxel 200mbps adapters and they work well for me. I go from the top floor of my house to the basement and I get speeds around 40-50 mbps.

 

[Eug]

wow - mixed bag of reviews here! should be very interesting to check out though...

I ended up grabbing a set of the Netgeat x2501 adapters
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122360

the 200Mbps parts are 100Mpbs full duplex, so I realize it won't ever be '200' - I'm happy if I can pull down 40-50Mbps; my ISP link is only 18Mbps so no worries there

Thanks! We should keep this thread going as I don't really see a 'convergence' of powerline threads here!

Please give us an update with speeds in your setup and your topography when you get them.

Now you got me curious. Maybe I'll run iperf to see what the network speeds really are where I'm running them in my house.

 

[Emulex]

make sure you test udp and tcp. you'll see what i mean.

far distances expect 95% packet loss. xp is terrible with this. win7 can tune better. but i've found in many cases dropping the interface speed down to 10megabit half or full duplex resulted in better performance than 100megabit. why? because windows does tweak itself for the expect bandwidth.

 

[Toadster]

well, the Netgear tool says 104Mbps send, and 84Mbps receive

I need to hack a bit at it... to validate

 

[StrangerGuy]

I did temp work for an IPTV provider before and they strongly discourage their customers from using any powerline network because even with normal power flunctuations going inside a house the connection is too unstable even for standard def TV streams. We got so much complaints regarding them that we simply do wired Ethernet for customers free of charge.

 

[weeber]

You're going to get a mix of reviews because powerline networking is totally a YMMV situation. It all depends on the wiring in your house. Some have great experiences with it; others, not so much.

I have a powerline network setup for consisting of three devices (Two Linksys PLE300's and one Linksys PLE200 - used to be all PLE200's but I bricked a couple with a bad firmware flash last week ). I've been using powerline networking since the middle of '07, and it's worked so well I've never thought about upgrading.

Anyways, I have one unit upstairs and that has my router and HD Homerun QAM tuner connected to it, and two downstairs (one for my main desktop and one for my HTPC and PS3 in the living room). On average, I get file copy transfers (WinXP-Win7) of about 4 MB/s (32Mb/s) between the HTPC and main desktop. Not stunning, but good enough for my needs. The HD Homerun (upstairs) has no problem streaming 720p or 1080i MPEG2 to my downstairs HTPC. It all works flawlessly without dropouts. If I tried streaming some uncompressed Bluray, then it probably wouldn't work, but I have no need for that.

All three devices are on different circuit breakers, and I know at least one is on a separate hot bus than the others. I've tested them with the dryer (220V) and other electrical devices connected and they don't seem to notice. I've been really happy with my powerline networking. When I bricked my adapters a couple of weeks ago (my fault, sort of), I was really upset. I thought about going the wireless "N" route, but got a couple of PLE300's for a good price instead because I know powerline stuff works in my house.

Again, your house may be different. My home was built in 2001, and it seems to work great. It all depends on the wiring/breaker setup. Some homes just don't like them.

Here's a good powerline roundup you that may interest you:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-reviews/31241-homeplug-av-adapter-roundup

Yes, mixing brands is usually a bad idea. Although they're typically all Homeplug compliant, they usually don't play nice with each other. Check out the roundup, of the 200mbps models, I think the Netgear ones are the best. Also, don't expect to get anywhere near 200mbps, the best the round-up was able to get was mid to high 40's. That's fairly typical, there's a lot of overhead and they rate them by adding the full duplex numbers (100 mb/s upload and 100 mb/s download - full duplex, so let's just say they're 200 mb/s models).

Edit - Oops, I see that I need to keep reading, and that you already picked up a pair of Netgears. Nice, I hope they work well for you. Hopefully the information I posted will be of use to someone else.

 

[airdata]

You're going to get a mix of reviews because powerline networking is totally a YMMV situation. It all depends on the wiring in your house. Some have great experiences with it; others, not so much.

I tried it several years ago in my house that was built in 1975... didn't have any luck at all... I think it's too hit or miss to really be useful.

I think it'd be more worthwhile to just have cat cable run throughout your house.

 

[Eug]

My short summary.

A. YMMV
B. With decent wiring, Internet speeds are not a problem.
C. If you're lucky you might be able to stream video, but don't count on it.
D. "Just string CAT6" is a not good answer, since powerline networking's whole reason for existence is to fill in for times when CAT6 or CAT5e is not an easy solution.
E. YMMV

In my case I have Gigabit throughout the house now but I still use poweline in the hard to reach areas like my backyard gazebo. I didn't feel like burying 200 feet of flooded cable in my garden.

 

[tyler811]

You already buoght the stuff so good luck Sir. My parents come up in the summer with a fifth wheel travel trailer and park on the other side of my garage. Getting them a wireless signal was a pain in the ass, so I tried powerline network. I was going to hook the first one up in the house and hook it into the network with cat 5e. The second one I put into the garage and then I would run cat 5e out to their trailer. Well it worked in certain parts of the house and not at all in the garage. I determined it was because certain parts of the house were on a different bank and while garage got its power from a 60 amp fuse in the house. It was on the other bank also. That was 2 years ago.

So when they came this year I went to Newegg and bought this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-062-_-Product and just had set as a repeater and set it up in the garage. Worked like a charm. Unplugged I would get a maybe a bar once in while in the trailer. Plugged in I got 5 full bars. Worked great too for my mom watching netflix online.

 

[Toadster]

ok - so not much in the sense of 'testing' so far, but the connectivity seems to be MUCH better than the previous WLAN that we have setup...

I even purchased a 3rd box - the Netgear XAV1004 with 4-ports for a bedroom with 2 PC's - now these PC's had Wireless USB networking gear previously and would pull in "fair to good" signal- now with the powerline network - they're doing quite well!

here's a snap of the Netgear app
http://img145.imageshack.us/i/powerline.jpg/

what does everyone recommend for some 'speed' testing on the LAN?

 

[Toadster]

?? i have windows PC's and a mac - no Linux... seems that netperf is good, but Linux only...

 

[Emulex]

iperf ?

 

[Eug]

I used iperf to test on the Mac.

BTW, the 150 Mbps you see in the config utility is pure fiction. Nonetheless, if it's working well, then it may be a heluvalot more stable (and faster) than wireless.

 

[nanaki333]

You're going to get a mix of reviews because powerline networking is totally a YMMV situation. It all depends on the wiring in your house. Some have great experiences with it; others, not so much.

I have a powerline network setup for consisting of three devices (Two Linksys PLE300's and one Linksys PLE200 - used to be all PLE200's but I bricked a couple with a bad firmware flash last week ). I've been using powerline networking since the middle of '07, and it's worked so well I've never thought about upgrading.

Anyways, I have one unit upstairs and that has my router and HD Homerun QAM tuner connected to it, and two downstairs (one for my main desktop and one for my HTPC and PS3 in the living room). On average, I get file copy transfers (WinXP-Win7) of about 4 MB/s (32Mb/s) between the HTPC and main desktop. Not stunning, but good enough for my needs. The HD Homerun (upstairs) has no problem streaming 720p or 1080i MPEG2 to my downstairs HTPC. It all works flawlessly without dropouts. If I tried streaming some uncompressed Bluray, then it probably wouldn't work, but I have no need for that.

All three devices are on different circuit breakers, and I know at least one is on a separate hot bus than the others. I've tested them with the dryer (220V) and other electrical devices connected and they don't seem to notice. I've been really happy with my powerline networking. When I bricked my adapters a couple of weeks ago (my fault, sort of), I was really upset. I thought about going the wireless "N" route, but got a couple of PLE300's for a good price instead because I know powerline stuff works in my house.

Again, your house may be different. My home was built in 2001, and it seems to work great. It all depends on the wiring/breaker setup. Some homes just don't like them.

Here's a good powerline roundup you that may interest you:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-reviews/31241-homeplug-av-adapter-roundup

Yes, mixing brands is usually a bad idea. Although they're typically all Homeplug compliant, they usually don't play nice with each other. Check out the roundup, of the 200mbps models, I think the Netgear ones are the best. Also, don't expect to get anywhere near 200mbps, the best the round-up was able to get was mid to high 40's. That's fairly typical, there's a lot of overhead and they rate them by adding the full duplex numbers (100 mb/s upload and 100 mb/s download - full duplex, so let's just say they're 200 mb/s models).

Edit - Oops, I see that I need to keep reading, and that you already picked up a pair of Netgears. Nice, I hope they work well for you. Hopefully the information I posted will be of use to someone else.

this has to be one of the most to-the-point useful reviews i've seen relevant to what most people will want to use these adapters for, and how they preform.

 

[JackMDS]

this has to be one of the most to-the-point useful reviews i've seen relevant to what most people will want to use these adapters for, and how they preform.

+1.

I posted here and elsewhere at more than 10 times similar info.

I guess that as the time pass and nothing much changes, and it is hard to keep taking some aspect of Networking seriously.

There is an inherit problem in Wireless Networking and Powerline. Both are transmitting network info through mediums that are Not related to computers and networking per-se (The air, and power lines). These mediums variables are unique in every situation and can not be controlled by the users.

Due the large variation and noise in these mediums, the Standard Error of Estimate is much larger than the Standard deviation of the testing methods thus deeming the current model of reviews none applicable (The standard error of the estimate is a measure of the accuracy of predictions).

Enthusiasts that are willing to put some energy into posting reports on work that they did while disclosing accurately the nature of the environment could compensate for it, are not in existence anymore. Between the useless facebook and twitter, there is No time for anything else anymore.

Most members on Forums have just enough energy just to ask what the “best is” and add few terms like WTF, and ASAP.

As a result, what we have are few review sites that attempt to review Wireless and Powerline in some sort of controlled environment that might, and most of the time, might not be applicable to anyone else.