Does anyone have any experience with "powerline" internet solutions. I was checking out a netgear one (http://www.netgear.c...e/XAVB5001.aspx) and I was just looking for some people with some input as in whether they are good or not. Also It would be great if someone could give me an idea of you set them up especially concerning the router. Cheers
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6 replies to this topic
#2
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The cake is a lie.
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Posted 01 February 2012 - 11:23 AM
simmok, on 01 February 2012 - 09:20 AM, said:
Does anyone have any experience with "powerline" internet solutions. I was checking out a netgear one (http://www.netgear.c...e/XAVB5001.aspx) and I was just looking for some people with some input as in whether they are good or not. Also It would be great if someone could give me an idea of you set them up especially concerning the router. Cheers
We use them in our house and they work very well if your house had good wiring, and you don't use a million extension leads
#3
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Posted 01 February 2012 - 01:00 PM
Have had 2 lots in my time.
1 had no issues (until a power cut killed it)
1 works fine most of the time, but looses connection sometimes & then they need turning off and back on again... :/
1 had no issues (until a power cut killed it)
1 works fine most of the time, but looses connection sometimes & then they need turning off and back on again... :/
#4
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Network Whiz
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Posted 01 February 2012 - 02:34 PM
A few issues with them:
1) They do not work well (if at all) when going between multiple circuits - This all depend on wiring. I personally have separate circuits for the downstairs and upstairs.
2) The speed they achieve can vary a lot depending on the quality of your wiring. (speeds around 5MB/s with good wiring which is maybe twice as quick as high end wireless)
3) The interference generated by them basically renders radio useless. Certainly not responsible tech to use in a built up area.
4) Latency is a lot more than with ethernet. Looking at about 3-5ms with powerline compared to (well i'm getting 0.3ms over gigabit). Wireless in a good environment can be less (for instance I often see <1ms on my apple wireless) HOWEVER wireless ping varies much more than powerline.
5) You must plug them directly into the wall - so could cause issues if you don't have many wall outlets.
So really all in all that are not as good as they are made out to be. Yes in a building with decent wiring they perform better than wireless but unless your in an old building with thick walls you may want to just spend the money on a decent wireless setup (I'm not talking the cheap wifi they stick in routers as the throughput and ping are horrendous in those units) I'm talking about buying decent standalone wireless gear from cisco, netgear prosafe, HP business grade and even believe it or not apple do very good wireless in their extreme series airport units. Then unlike powerline all your wireless devices can utilize the better gear. The most important thing to remember though is THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A CABLE!
If you can routing a cable is very easy, will definitely be the cheapest option and of course the best option. Heck even if you have to have cables dangling down the corner of your room from the roof space it's still better than any other networking
I have a whole bundle of cables down the corner of my room!
About setup though there will be no specific setting you'll have to change on your router. As far as it's concerned it is just an ethernet cable but just responds a bit slow.
1) They do not work well (if at all) when going between multiple circuits - This all depend on wiring. I personally have separate circuits for the downstairs and upstairs.
2) The speed they achieve can vary a lot depending on the quality of your wiring. (speeds around 5MB/s with good wiring which is maybe twice as quick as high end wireless)
3) The interference generated by them basically renders radio useless. Certainly not responsible tech to use in a built up area.
4) Latency is a lot more than with ethernet. Looking at about 3-5ms with powerline compared to (well i'm getting 0.3ms over gigabit). Wireless in a good environment can be less (for instance I often see <1ms on my apple wireless) HOWEVER wireless ping varies much more than powerline.
5) You must plug them directly into the wall - so could cause issues if you don't have many wall outlets.
So really all in all that are not as good as they are made out to be. Yes in a building with decent wiring they perform better than wireless but unless your in an old building with thick walls you may want to just spend the money on a decent wireless setup (I'm not talking the cheap wifi they stick in routers as the throughput and ping are horrendous in those units) I'm talking about buying decent standalone wireless gear from cisco, netgear prosafe, HP business grade and even believe it or not apple do very good wireless in their extreme series airport units. Then unlike powerline all your wireless devices can utilize the better gear. The most important thing to remember though is THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A CABLE!
If you can routing a cable is very easy, will definitely be the cheapest option and of course the best option. Heck even if you have to have cables dangling down the corner of your room from the roof space it's still better than any other networking
I have a whole bundle of cables down the corner of my room!About setup though there will be no specific setting you'll have to change on your router. As far as it's concerned it is just an ethernet cable but just responds a bit slow.
#5
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Posted 03 February 2012 - 10:17 PM
Does the router need gigabit ehternet to work with powerline?
#6
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Posted 03 February 2012 - 10:43 PM
no fast ethernet will word as well. You'll be limited to 100mb/s however - but the powerline probably won't have the throughput that high anyway (depends on the above stuff though again)
#7
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Posted 04 February 2012 - 04:59 AM
Right thanks for all that. My house is very old so I doubt the wiring is any good. Looks like I'll be upgrading the wireless
