5 ms·

I decided to buy a long Ethernet wire and run it down the stairs. I trip over it sometimes, Why not use Powerline Ethernet? In most houses, it's typically fast

I decided to buy a long Ethernet wire and run it down the stairs. I trip over it sometimes, Why not use Powerline Ethernet? In most houses, it's typically fast and reliable and requires no extra wires. E.g. the data rate between my desk and router is currently 784 Mbit/s.

peterburkimsher 9y ago
Price. $1500 (50 USD) for power-line Ethernet, $300 (10 USD) for a wire. And the lower latent power consumption, and the fact the wire is less likely to be the cause of any problem. I'm renting the house, and wherever I move next probably won't have this problem.
therealidiot 9y ago
These are good but if you have any analog audio/video kit nearby (or if you listen to shortwave radio) you'll hear them. Also, avoid TP-Link adapters as they seem to have some issue coming out of powersave mode that means I have to ping something all day to prevent them from sleeping
ht85 9y ago
Powerline is a crapshoot, at least as much as Wifi. I installed several different models a few years back, for me and some friends/family, and in every case ended up finding another solution as they would just add another layer of unreliability. Cheap ones suffer from the same problems as cheap routers, randomly hanging and requiring a physical plug / unplug when the room gets hot, or whatever other interferences degrade their performance over time. Expensive ones are still not 100% reliable, and most of the time will cost more than a well done ethernet installation.
- danieldk 9y ago
  Never had any problems in three different houses. Two different brands (we use AVM Fritz!PowerLine now). I reliably get high bandwidth and low latency. A gave an old set of adapters to my parents in law who live in an older house (from the 1930s) and it works well for them as well. Of course, as a sibling said, it'll depend a lot on the wiring and/or other connected devices. So I guess it's best to try with a borrowed pair of adapters first.
- blackflame7000 9y ago
  I've had one brand that did not work at all, but netgear powerline adapters 500mbps or better have been solid for me even in heavily congested outlets.
lostboys67 9y ago
I suspect the OP lives in a country where house power wiring is a bit shakey. In the UK I have had very few problems with powerline one failed through over heating and had an issue when we had our solar panels installed as the POS Netgear router didn't implement STP and we had a broadcast storm

peterburkimsher 9y ago

Price. $1500 (50 USD) for power-line Ethernet, $300 (10 USD) for a wire. And the lower latent power consumption, and the fact the wire is less likely to be the cause of any problem. I'm renting the house, and wherever I move next probably won't have this problem.

therealidiot 9y ago

These are good but if you have any analog audio/video kit nearby (or if you listen to shortwave radio) you'll hear them. Also, avoid TP-Link adapters as they seem to have some issue coming out of powersave mode that means I have to ping something all day to prevent them from sleeping

ht85 9y ago

Powerline is a crapshoot, at least as much as Wifi. I installed several different models a few years back, for me and some friends/family, and in every case ended up finding another solution as they would just add another layer of unreliability. Cheap ones suffer from the same problems as cheap routers, randomly hanging and requiring a physical plug / unplug when the room gets hot, or whatever other interferences degrade their performance over time. Expensive ones are still not 100% reliable, and most of the time will cost more than a well done ethernet installation.

danieldk 9y ago
Never had any problems in three different houses. Two different brands (we use AVM Fritz!PowerLine now). I reliably get high bandwidth and low latency. A gave an old set of adapters to my parents in law who live in an older house (from the 1930s) and it works well for them as well. Of course, as a sibling said, it'll depend a lot on the wiring and/or other connected devices. So I guess it's best to try with a borrowed pair of adapters first.
blackflame7000 9y ago
I've had one brand that did not work at all, but netgear powerline adapters 500mbps or better have been solid for me even in heavily congested outlets.

lostboys67 9y ago

I suspect the OP lives in a country where house power wiring is a bit shakey. In the UK I have had very few problems with powerline one failed through over heating and had an issue when we had our solar panels installed as the POS Netgear router didn't implement STP and we had a broadcast storm