HomePlug FAQ *Part 2*

meltonboy

A lot of postings in this forum seem to be around speed, so I can tell you my experience is that the amount of other stuff plugged into the sockets adjacent to the homeplug appears to make a big difference.

I previously had my router in a kids bedroom (no other electronic kit nearby) and used a homeplug. At the time i had a 30mb internet service (VM superhub1) and got 30mb speed form my laptop plugged into another bedroom (again, no other electrical kit).

I now have the router in my living room (so i don't broadcast wifi right next to a childs bed). This means that the homeplug is plugged in right next to all of my AV kit (about a dozen things plugged in). I'm now getting 18-19mb speed (laptop in same place) from a 60mb service (VM Superhub2). I don't want to move the router, so i'm going to switch back to wifi (and install a 5 band antenna to make the best of that). Even the 2.4 band wifi gets 25mb speed ie better than homeplug.

A bit disappointing (having previously spent a few quid on 4 plugs), but they are clear on the instructions that other electrical kit will have a negative effect. And also my subwoofer was picking up interference.

I have the devolo AV 200 plugs.

MB

bigjb

Quick question.

Got the virgin media superhub in the living room which gives wireless in the house except for the far away room at the end of the hall which gets no signal.i am currently trying the tp links 850re wifi extender which is plugged in the hall but only gets 2/3 out of 5 signal.This gives wifi in the far away room but ran some speed tests.

Living room 33 Mbps with tp links 850 switched off.
Living room 19 Mbps with tp links 850 switched on.
Far away bedroom 21 Mbps.

I am considering returning the to 850 and getting two pass through homeplugs instead.If I go with homeplugs I may connect an Apple time capsule to the homeplug in the end room and then use that as a time machine back up but also to provide a wireless signal.

Should I expect better results with homeplugs as I'm concerned that the extender is choking the system.

tom 2000

Get your calculators out. Sky box connected to web by Netgear 200 wotsits home plug. A 759 MB download takes about an hour. An Ashes highlights programme. A ten minute buffer is needed on a 50 minute programme and if I fast forward too much I hit the buffers. How does that sound?

MilhouseVH

Totally impossible to answer without knowing what kind of broadband connection you have, you might be on 1Mbit ADSL because you live in the @rse end of nowhere for all we know in which case that sounds totally normal.

Presumably though you have better than a 1Mbit connection and are suggesting the Homeplug connection is a bit duff, in which case whip out iperf and test the actual throughout you are getting (and stability of the connection) between your two Homeplug endpoints (the Sky box and presumably your ISP router). You'll need a PC-type device (Windows, Linux or Unix) at each end to run iperf.

Once you know the kind of throughput your Homeplug network is actually delivering you can then determine if Homeplug is the problem, or if its your ISP. Anything else is just guesswork.

tom 2000

To be honest I was being non prejudicial. I am just not familiar with the units and what it's supposed to mean in real life performance. A broadband speed test on PC  would normally show a speed of 14 thingys. Which is fairly quick. I didn't run a test either side of the download and I appreciate the end result depends on the chain. Your tone suggests my connection is slow. I wasn't suggesting it was, I just was interested in how my performance measured up.

MilhouseVH

Not at all, I just haven't got enough information to say where your problem is.

You need to determine accurate throughput results - not "thingies" - for all of the likely bottlenecks in the chain, that's your upstream ISP connection (your internet connection) and the Homeplug leg of your network (assuming your Sky STB and ISP router are both performing optimally).

Your router should tell you the connection speed and a simple download or speedtest will confirm these figures, but a tool such as iperf will give you an accurate figure for the Homeplug connection. A simple file transfer across the Homeplug network will provide a ballpark figure but iperf is better at revealing dropouts due to an unstable connection.

tom 2000

So do I have a problem?

MilhouseVH

No idea, test your bandwidth as described - come back when you've done some tests and can provide actual throughput figures.

tom 2000

Well am I right in calculating the download was achieved using less than 2Mbps as in Megabits/second?

MilhouseVH

Yep, that would be the approximate speed if you say the STB downloaded a 759MB file in about 1 hour. You also claim your broadband throughput is 14 "thingys". Do you really expect a serious answer here? Not from me anyway, I've lost all interest...