Are Powerline adapters good?

I tried the TL-PA211 units, but they did not work , have not been been able to to figure out why.
 
B@rrels said:
I have 4 TP-Link powerline units installed in my house and granny flat as well and not all are off the same circuit breaker and have no problem getting connected to internet.The connection speed on all are different but can still download at 200Kb/s? on a 2 Meg line.
Click to expand...

Are you not,perhaps, repeating the wifi signals?
 
I have 2 x TPLink TL-PA210 and am happily streaming 1080p content over them to my PS3. Got them from Uniterm a while back on sale to make way for the TL-PA211.
 
I also installed a TPlink set yesterday and it was working as soon as i plugged it in. up till now i had my media center on wireless, which was a nightmare when trying to stream from it. And even though it's not plugged straight into the wall, but plugged into an extension cord that is plugged into another extension cord it works like a charm.. can't believe i waited to long to get me these...
 
franharris89 said:
I am thinking of adding a computer upstairs in our house, but the router is downstairs.

I was looking at Wifi, but I found this Powerline network system which seems cheaper and more stable

These looks really good, no new wires, just plug one powerline adapter into a power plug near the router (correct?) and the other on plug in a socket near the computer.

Seems like a simple set up, and they say 500 Mbps which seems fast, good enough for gaming (right?)

Look like there is a lot of adapters to choose from, but some are HomePlug certified, and some are not (the above are).

What is this HomePlug certification, is it important?

Is HomePlug certified faster?

Anyone using Powerline, and how do they like it?
Click to expand...

Hi I have 2 pairs....one for my xbox -> router and one for my pc -> router

I'm using a Billion AV-200 Homeplug, I get round about 10-12 mb/s, essentially they run at 100mbs ethernet speed...I think the only reason why they call it "200" is 100mbs in and 100mbs out = 200 ... not sure, but I can compare it to a 100mbs network.

I can stream HD perfectly fine from PC -> XBox

They run between 2-4ms latency....not really an issue....but if you are use to a 10ms ping....you can expect an increased ping of about 2-4ms, nothing major :)

Oh yeah...1GBs homeplugs are now available too...so streaming anything from HD to BluRay shouldn't be an issue :)
 
Thanks for the info.
You say you get 10-12 mb/s, would that be MB (megabytes) per second or Mb (megabits) per second?
How far apart are the plugs, are we talking upstairs/downstairs or across a lounge?
 
Carnajo said:
Thanks for the info.
You say you get 10-12 mb/s, would that be MB (megabytes) per second or Mb (megabits) per second?
How far apart are the plugs, are we talking upstairs/downstairs or across a lounge?
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Hi up to +-12 megabytes per second.... (100mbs/8=12.5 mb/s)

Its accross the lounge....same floor....doesn't matter which floor youre on as your electricity network runs on the same powerlines, a friend of mine borrowed mine to see how it works between storeys and he reported also a steady 12mb/s (100mbs).

As long as you don't go further than 400m(I think) you should be OK.
 
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franharris89 said:
I am thinking of adding a computer upstairs in our house, but the router is downstairs.

I was looking at Wifi, but I found this Powerline network system which seems cheaper and more stable

These looks really good, no new wires, just plug one powerline adapter into a power plug near the router (correct?) and the other on plug in a socket near the computer.

Seems like a simple set up, and they say 500 Mbps which seems fast, good enough for gaming (right?)

Look like there is a lot of adapters to choose from, but some are HomePlug certified, and some are not (the above are).

What is this HomePlug certification, is it important?

Is HomePlug certified faster?

Anyone using Powerline, and how do they like it?
Click to expand...

I used to use these in my house - I had 2 x Belkin adapters. I would say the performance is sketchy and should only really be used when you have absolutely no other alternative. What I found is that despite my small house, it was often difficult to establish a connection between the 2 adapters. Also, there tended to be alot of interference and if I plugged something else into a plug, my connection would drop. Added to this, the performance wasnt great either - maybe 2-3mbits tops (my adapters were rated 54mbits). It could very well be that the wiring on my house wasnt the greatest as it is about 30 years old, but who knows - i sometimes feel older homes were wired better than newer homes. The room where i was trying to use these was probably no more than 10 meters away - wireless didnt work because of the thick brick walls. I ended up ditching these and going for a very high end wireless router which gave me better connection than the powerline adapters.

It should be noted, I also tried these out in another house in JHB which was no moer than 3 years old, and I couldnt get them to work at all.
 
Just ordered two pairs of these, they should arrive on Friday.

Moved into a new house and wireless just isn't cutting it. Hopefully these will sort out that problem.
 
Do the different power line adapters makes work with each others. I.e. do TP Link work with Billion?
 
Jola said:
I tried the TL-PA211 units, but they did not work , have not been been able to to figure out why.
Click to expand...

Would you consider selling your non-working units?:D

Anyway, I started off with a pair of TP-Link 511s, the 500Mbps units. Within a couple of minutes I got them going. I could only get a maximum of around 200Mbps out of them, so when it came to adding more, I bought a 211. They are happily doing what they are supposed to do. I have one in an upstairs room connected to a 3G wireless router, which is the 3G access point. I have another downstairs in the study. The 211 is in the AV room where it is connected to the Xbox for online gaming. The study and AV room units ate chatting along at about 150Mbps, but the one from the upstairs room is only communicating with the others at around 80Mbps. These values are from the supplied software.

I want to add another one or two to see if I can not get the comms between upstairs and downstairs better. Somewhere I have a long electric cable run that, if I can add another unit as a booster, will get the data rate up.

I am pretty happy with my units and will recommend it to anyone. Powerline adapters FTW.:D
 
I have not had great results when trying to implement at customers.
Biggest issue is as mentioned it will only work on 1 phase, if a 3 phase supply, you have to find power plugs on the same phase or get the board rewired to ensure that the points where you want connectivity are all on the same phase.
They do not cope well with multiplugs, or surge protectors, so you must plug directly into wall socket and then plug multiplugs into the socket on the homeplug unit.

I have worked with TP-Link, Netgear, Edimax and D-Link 200MBps units
Ended up returning units I had bought to try at various customers, real painful process as when I did get connectivity, it would work for a day or so, then lose connectivity. One person seemed to be using Netgear successfully, just had to replace a unit blown by lightning, another was using D-Link successfully until an electrician rewired the circuit and moved one plug to a different phase.

I must say I did find the software supplied by D-Link to manage their range was great, as it would list the units and give you the link speed, which averaged out between 50 and 75MB.
 
My house is only one phase so I'm hoping I won't have any issues. But I've got horribly bad luck so we'll see.
 
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