Powerline Adapter Low Speed

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Powerline Adapter Low Speed

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Powerline Adapter Low Speed
Powerline Adapter Low Speed
2023-05-12 20:21:12
Model: TL-WPA4220 KIT  
Hardware Version: V3
Firmware Version: 1.3.1.2141-00_4013_171025_901

Hi,

We recently started to setup a home office and thought we'd need a way to extend a network connection to it (a garage not physically connected to the house) so we opted for Powerline, and got this (https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-WPA4220KIT-Powerline-Broadband-Configuration-UK/dp/B01LXOZ4EN/ref=zg_bs_430576031_sccl_1/259-6369969-8722405) from Amazon which specifically describes itself as "extend up to 300 Mbps Wireless connections", so I assumed that would be the approximate maximum speed via WiFi, as well as "Provides fast powerline transfer speeds of up to 600 Mbps*" from the individual product page of the extender here (https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerline/tl-wpa4220/v5/ / https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerline/tl-wpa4220-kit/ - the extender I have is also V5).

However, when I opened the box I was a bit surprised when the two ethernet cables supplied were cat 5, and indeed using these cables without the powerline system (direct from router to computer) showed a network speed capped at just short of 100 Mbps, which is roughly what I was expecting, so I instead chose to use a cat 5E cable and a cat 6 cable that I had, which both achieved > 800Mbps from a 2.5Gbps port on the router. However, after setting up the adapter and extender, doing everything except unifying the WiFi network either via WPS or manually (I wanted to test in isolation first so I knew I wasn't just testing my own network), I was disappointed that no matter what combination I tried (including using the supplied ethernet cables), I wasn't able to surpass ~95Mbps either via ethernet or WiFi. So after a bit of research, I found the hardware specs (https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerline/tl-wpa4220-kit/) which told me that neither component actually had an ethernet port capable of handling >100Mbps speeds (which also fit with the speeds being reported to me by my routers web interface). As a last attempt, I unified the WiFi networks (just in case for some reason it drew on WiFi as well to reach the speeds it said above) and then took the extender out to the garage to test it (previously everything had been done at a mains plug socket around 3m from the router / adapter - all on the same circuit) however I found that I was still at ~50Mbps over WiFi using the extender, however just from turning off the extender and relying only on the router's WiFi signal, the speed increased ~5x.

So overall I'm not quite sure why it claims the speeds it does (unless I'm missing something important here - please let me know if I am) when it seems fairly strictly limited at 100Mbps? I could understand there being some speed loss from using Powerline and it was never going to be 100% efficient, but this seems a bit strange?

Side note: on the Amazon page, it lists the Maximum Powerline Speed and WiFi Speed Up To as AV600 and N300Mbps respectively, I assumed that these just meant 600Mbps and 300Mbps and trying to search just brought me back to these products but based on my experience with the product now I wonder if they mean something different, if someone knows and could let me know it would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jack

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Re:Powerline Adapter Low Speed
2023-05-15 11:16:39 - last edited 2023-05-15 11:18:34

  @jack0123 

 

Hi, actually powerline rate AV600 or wireless rate 300Mbps doesn't mean actual internet speed.

For example, AV600 means the maximum powerline rate between the two powerline units is 600Mbps, but in real powerline environment, it would be less such as 300Mbps or 200Mbps etc. depending on the powerline environment, you could also check your powerline rate between the two units via tpPLC utility.

And more importantly, usually the actual internet speed could be around 30% of powerline rate, thus the actual internet speed for AV600 is usually no more than 100Mbps, which is also why the Ethernet ports on them are designed to be 100Mbps port.

 

For more information about the powerline rate and internet speed, please refer to Explanation about the Powerline Rate and Actual speed of the Powerline Adapters

 

By the way, if your router bandwitdh is higher than 800Mbps, the current AV600 products is not suitable for you, you might need to consider much higher level products such as AV2000 TL-PA9020P KIT(no wifi) or G.hn2400 PGW2440 KIT.

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Re:Powerline Adapter Low Speed
2023-05-26 09:03:22 - last edited 2023-05-26 09:03:43

  @jack0123 Yes, claiming 300 MBit/s WiFi on something that has a 100 MBit/s uplink is at least close to false advertising.

 

In real life though, when the powerline stretch is all the way to the garage, you may want to look at the powerline speed before you curse the slow ethernet jacks. I'd expect the powerline connection to be slower than the 100 Mbit/s ethernet uplink - so the absence of a Gigabit jack won't even matter.

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