Hardware Zyxel PLA4211 500mbps Powerline Adaptor review

[CrapBag]

Sorry I didn't explain myself properly.

I have four 85mbps that I wish to replace as I have recently purchased a Netgear 200mbps kit so I was wondering if the ones you linked to would work with the netgear ones I just bought regarding the encryption buttons.

This is what I bought

[Parge]

Originally Posted by CrapBag

Sorry I didn't explain myself properly.

I have four 85mbps that I wish to replace as I have recently purchased a Netgear 200mbps kit so I was wondering if the ones you linked to would work with the netgear ones I just bought regarding the encryption buttons.

This is what I bought

Ah I see.

I couldn't tell you to be honest. Their are different standards, most of which are compatible, but not sure how the encryption part works

More info here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug

[sandys]

These are the cheaper version of what I have, if you buy the 42x5 models rather than 42x1 you will get the Gigabit interface and they do run faster than these.

500s are particularly good with multiple streams if you have lots of hardware around the house as I do, they certainly handle it better than 200s as shown here

[sandys]

Originally Posted by CrapBag

Sorry I didn't explain myself properly.

I have four 85mbps that I wish to replace as I have recently purchased a Netgear 200mbps kit so I was wondering if the ones you linked to would work with the netgear ones I just bought regarding the encryption buttons.

This is what I bought

Just reset the adaptors to remove encryption and then re add it by pressing the encryption button to set up new devices, or if the new device has no encryption it will take the same code from the others when you push encrypt on the existing devices and then encrypt button on the new ones, you get two minutes to pair them after pushing the button.

[Rob Lang]

To pass on my limited experience in a Victorian house...

My friend and I both live in houses built in 1890 and his house is fine for powerline (200Mb/s data rates, even over 30ft of distance) whereas mine is not (I used his adapters to test mine!). Both have original wiring. Also, his has a split ring main so "upstairs" can't communicate with "downstairs".

We couldn't find an analytical way of telling whether one house or another was suitable (we're not electrician geeks). DIY forums couldn't offer any advice as "it depends" rather heavily.

Just passing that on, hope it helps.

[law99]

Originally Posted by Krikkit

It might not be that hard, but personally I find it to be a bit of an eyesore in a nice place, having CAT5 stapled to the wall/stairs etc... Don't get me wrong, if I decorated I'd have it all run behind the walls/skirting, but otherwise it's wireless and homeplugs please.

I get if you have some rooms not carpeted... But we have a skirt if you like with a Lip round the ceiling which completely hides the cable. Then all we need is draws, shelves, furniture and they are hidden. Only two places where it is visible and because it's the same colour as the wall, it isn't noticeable.

We can also go up into the loft and back down when necessary.

[jimmyjj]

I want to go away from wireless to see if I can improve my online gaming.

As I live in a bachelor flat I am just going to traipse Cat 5 straight through the hall

[Saivert]

so they reach gigabit speeds on the latest wireless tech and yet powerline networking can't exceed 500Mbps? I call conspiracy.

I just wired my home with Cat5e. I want gigabit conn. to my home server.

[Gradius]

Is really sad to see products labeled as 500Mbps while they will NEVER EVER reach such speed, not even 50% of it!

[ZeDestructor]

Originally Posted by Saivert

so they reach gigabit speeds on the latest wireless tech and yet powerline networking can't exceed 500Mbps? I call conspiracy.

I just wired my home with Cat5e. I want gigabit conn. to my home server.

Ever looked at current/voltage characteristics of your gear through an oscilloscope? I have (I'm an Elec Eng student) and the noise levels are astounding compared to wifi since nobody put a noise limit.

[barrkel]

Originally Posted by Parge

What about people that rent their homes?
What about people that haven’t got the tools for DIY cable installation?
What about the people that haven’t got the skills for DIY cable installation?
What about people who want a cheap, reliable, and easy to install solution?
What about the people for whom powerline is enough – even on my 200mpbs powerline kit, I can stream 1080p flawlessly.

Cat5e is cable, everyone understands cable, it's no different than routing an extension cord. Tools? I listed the tools - you can use a heavy rock if necessary to hammer in the cable clips. Rented home? That's my case, my cables mostly go in the gap between the wall and the carpet gripper strips.

Don't forget that powerline networking is shared bus networking. Total available bandwidth is split across all users; if you have four machines, A talking to B will reduce the bandwidth for C talking to D.

OK: probable best case for powerline networking is extending a wifi network, putting in an extra base station to fill in gaps in coverage. Connecting to it, you'd never go faster than the wifi allows, so not saturate the powerline connection, and you'd typically just be using the internet, so wouldn't even saturate the wifi. But if you have machines that you want to wire into physically, you're far better off with the cable if you can manage it at all.

[DriftCarl]

My whole house has just been completly rewired, with new electic box and everything. Would this give my house a better chance of having a stable powerline setup?
I hate gaming on wifi, its a bit laggy at times. Currently have a long network cable going to my PC, and I really dont want to have to route it through skirting and make holes in the ceilings. I like to move my kit around the room quite a lot every 6 months or so. for £55 I might just invest, can I then buy another set at a later date to install into other rooms and they will all just sync up nicely?

[Blackshark]

Originally Posted by Saivert

so they reach gigabit speeds on the latest wireless tech and yet powerline networking can't exceed 500Mbps? I call conspiracy.

Erm - no they have not! Not even close. Not even when the next generation of 802.11ac comes out using up to 8 antennas (compared to the 3 that is the max. most manufacturers use for N) and 160MHz banding. At the moment the top end is 180Mbps (mega BITS per second). So that works out at about 20MB per second. Thats your lot.

Maybe with the additional aerials, wider channel, we can add 50 - 75% to that. Maybe.

All these technologies need the EU to come up with a standard real world test. If I can buy a gigabit router and get gigabit speeds, I dont see why it should be that I buy a gigabit wireless router and get 100-200Mbit speed. As I have always said, if we put marketing departments up against the wall (HHGTTG style) and got the teks to write the info on the box, then at least we would get some honesty.

[Parge]

Originally Posted by DriftCarl

My whole house has just been completly rewired, with new electic box and everything. Would this give my house a better chance of having a stable powerline setup?
I hate gaming on wifi, its a bit laggy at times. Currently have a long network cable going to my PC, and I really dont want to have to route it through skirting and make holes in the ceilings. I like to move my kit around the room quite a lot every 6 months or so. for £55 I might just invest, can I then buy another set at a later date to install into other rooms and they will all just sync up nicely?

Do it, just buy the cheap £22 pair I linked to earlier. I am 99% sure that would solve any issues you have with gaming (unless they are caused by your outside line, rather than internal wifi connection)

[ZeDestructor]

Originally Posted by DriftCarl

My whole house has just been completly rewired, with new electic box and everything. Would this give my house a better chance of having a stable powerline setup?
I hate gaming on wifi, its a bit laggy at times. Currently have a long network cable going to my PC, and I really dont want to have to route it through skirting and make holes in the ceilings. I like to move my kit around the room quite a lot every 6 months or so. for £55 I might just invest, can I then buy another set at a later date to install into other rooms and they will all just sync up nicely?

You had the house rewired but no CAT5e/6 put in? How disappointing. That aside, you should have a cleaner circuit and that should help give you better speeds in theory, but I suspect the sheer amount of noice from tansformers, feedback loops, random fluctuations etc will still lower the speed considerably.

Originally Posted by Blackshark

Erm - no they have not! Not even close. Not even when the next generation of 802.11ac comes out using up to 8 antennas (compared to the 3 that is the max. most manufacturers use for N) and 160MHz banding. At the moment the top end is 180Mbps (mega BITS per second). So that works out at about 20MB per second. Thats your lot.

Maybe with the additional aerials, wider channel, we can add 50 - 75% to that. Maybe.

All these technologies need the EU to come up with a standard real world test. If I can buy a gigabit router and get gigabit speeds, I dont see why it should be that I buy a gigabit wireless router and get 100-200Mbit speed. As I have always said, if we put marketing departments up against the wall (HHGTTG style) and got the teks to write the info on the box, then at least we would get some honesty.

My 802.11n setup disagrees with it 450Mbps link speed. Unfortunately, that works out to around 100-150mbits/s in practice.

What you describe as bad marketing is actually incorrect: The tech is capable of producing the numbers under the most perfect conditions (sealed lab, no neighbours, perfect antennas, etc.).

As for wired routing speed being slow, well, it claims a 1Gbit link speed (which it delivers nicely), but thanks to the CPU/RAM/Firmware/Switch combo, it may end up being slower than the link speed. For eaxmple, a high-powered Cisco ISP-grade router lives in a 2U rackmount box - it needs room for the powerful CPU, RAM, Power supply, heatsinks, switches, ethernet controllers etc.

Finally, a LOT of client devices have shitty implementations of networking gear (1500USD laptops with only 2.4GHz N150 wifi and 100Mbit wired LAN anyone?).

Meanwhile, the Intel controllers (4965AGN, 5300, Centrino 6300 for WLAN and 82576, 82567LM for wired LAN) on my machines reliably push out high-speeds (I've pushed steady 125MBytes/s raw bandwidth from my desktop to my laptop through a Netgear GS108E switch).

In fact, I'm in a situation where I've essentially convinced essentially all of my friends to move up to intel 6300 wifi cards just to get away from the cheapest realtek/broadcom/atheros chips OEMs seem so intent on putting in their machines... Its shameful that I get a steady 10ms ping with 10+MBytes/s download speeds at ubni while they chug along with miserable 200KBytes/s downloads and 50ms of jitter on the already terrible 200+ms pings...