TP-Link powerline adaptors

Introduction

Ethernet over the mains is always something that has previously puzzled me. Its something that I have used in the past on small amounts. Basically point-to-point. But since moving house. I have wanted to explore the technology more, as running Cat5 everywhere was not possible.

How it works

Powerline adaptors work by transmitting a DC waveform along side the existing 240vAC. This forms a mesh network using your home or office’s existing ring mains. This mesh can also be access via a different ring main, but at a slower speed.

What I already had

Previously I had been using a pair of the TP-Link AV600 adaptors. These boast an up to 600 megabit per second speed over existing cabling in your building. This is quite hard for me to understand considering the interfaces use 100Base-T ethernet. So for this reason I struggle to understand how you can get more than 100 megabits per second speed between the pair. Anyway. The pair on their own are reliable and provide a steady speed. They are simple to use requiring simple paring once you first install them and then you are good togo.

What I was upgrading to

I upgraded to the TP-Link AV1000 adaptors as these boast a an up to 1000 megabit per second speed and have 1000Base-T ethernet. Meaning we can theoretically get gigabit speeds over the mains. I opted for 6 adaptors for my house.

My network

Below is the diagram of my home network. Note there are two types of power line adaptors. I have both my AV600s and my AV1000s. I run these in two independent networks as unfortunately the run between my kitchen and the mancave are too long. So I run have to run via two networks. This is far from ideal and probably cause much latency but there is very little devices in the mancave that require network.

Experience

Overall the experience has been good and usable. However the mesh between the powerline adaptors can very quickly become congested and during high demand can become very slow. However what is not shown on the diagram is that any device that needs to transfer large amounts of data fast such as SMB file transfer from my laptop to my NAS are all connected to the same switch meaning that the data does not have to flow over the powerline mesh. I have designed this network so that mostly only internet traffic is over the mesh meaning that the mesh does not get bogged down with large file transfers. Only occasionally they mesh can become slow and this is normally when 4K streaming is taking place. But overall the system is efficient. Also note that my main access-point is not connected via the mesh, meaning that all wireless devices downstairs are not using the mesh. The software that TP-Link make for the adaptors is entirely useless. It is slow, clunky and sometimes refuses to work. All I was able todo from it was turn the LEDs on and off on the adaptors.

My recommendations

Even know my experiences have been fine. I would be very cautious when planning to use powerline adaptors at home or in a small office. You need to consider how far apart they are physically and if they are connected on the same ring main. I think 6 nodes are the maximum and keeping to as little nodes would be better. Remember a cable will always give you a better result, so try and use a cable as much as possible. powerline adaptors also don’t like being disconnected and reconnected too many times, so try and keep them in the same place as much as possible.

My one disappointment.

The only bug bear I had is that you cant get a powerline adaptor that supports POE. This is quite disappointing as if I could get rid of my POE injector, I have one less node in the system.

PLA, powerline, TP-Link, tplink

Hardware, Networking, Tech

January 8, 2022