Fibre and Powerline adaptors or alternatives

Fibre and Powerline adaptors or alternatives

Author
Discussion

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Good morning,

Recently moved into a new home and have just had a full fibre service (ee) installed - speed at their latest Wifi 7 router is approx 1.5gb via Wifi and the latest iPhone.

I have successfully created a mesh network across the home, with speeds in and around the 1gb mark - as the access points are hard wired.

I have one issue. I have turned one of the spare bedrooms into a home cinema, home to a 100in TV, PS5 & Xbox. However, said room does not have an ethernet port, thus the consoles will be reliant on Wifi.

In said room my Wifi network is pumping in approx 1gb, however the consoles over Wifi will only pick up 200mb, terrible ping and what they are calling 100% packet loss. I dont think I can change another setting on the router to try and combat this... so am trying to find a way of hard wiring the devices without ripping up the carpets.

Are modern powerline adaptors any good? Are there any alternatives?

Many thanks,

Russ

Harpoon

1,978 posts

221 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Which mesh system do you have? Do they have Ethernet ports for client devices?

As a test, could you move a mesh node into that room and connect things via Ethernet to the mesh node? The node then uses wireless backhaul to the rest of the network?

I finally got round to replacing my last Powerline unit a few months back. They were old Devolo models but you instantly see the ping latency to the Unifi AP which sat on the end of the Powerline drop once it was swapped to proper Ethernet.

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Im currently playing around with a Mercusys system I grabbed off Amazon and the ee smart wifi plus included with the package.

I hardwired the Mercusys node into my bedroom and the wifi speed was approx 600mb across the room. The ee device offered full 1.5gb speed across the same room when hardwired - so need to look into that further tonight.

As for your suggestion, there are no ethernet ports in the cinema room - so regardless the consoles would have to be connected via one of the mesh nodes that are hardwired in a different room?

Griffith4ever

4,760 posts

42 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Out of interest, the speeds you are quoting, are they network connections, or actual data speeds? (i.e. ookla) I'm assuming data negotiated link connection speeds as I've never seen a device connect at 200Mb with 100% packet loss and a poor ping.

Don't be too swayed by connection speeds. You'll be bitterly dissapointed with powerline adapters if you do.

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Griffith4ever said:
Out of interest, the speeds you are quoting, are they network connections, or actual data speeds? (i.e. ookla) I'm assuming data negotiated link connection speeds as I've never seen a device connect at 200Mb with 100% packet loss and a poor ping.

Don't be too swayed by connection speeds. You'll be bitterly dissapointed with powerline adapters if you do.
They are speeds quoted by internet speed tests via browser on either Macbook or iPhone.

Defcon5

6,303 posts

198 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Are your phone and the pS5 getting the same stats next to each other?


Harpoon

1,978 posts

221 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
russy01 said:
Im currently playing around with a Mercusys system I grabbed off Amazon and the ee smart wifi plus included with the package.

I hardwired the Mercusys node into my bedroom and the wifi speed was approx 600mb across the room. The ee device offered full 1.5gb speed across the same room when hardwired - so need to look into that further tonight.

As for your suggestion, there are no ethernet ports in the cinema room - so regardless the consoles would have to be connected via one of the mesh nodes that are hardwired in a different room?
Apologies, I don't think I explained my idea to test very well.

Move one of the hard wired mesh nodes into the cinema room and change it to use wireless backhaul to the nearest mesh node
Connect the consoles via Ethernet cable to the mesh node [1] moved into the cinema room and see if the network performance is any better.

That way you see if it's any better without buying anymore hardware

[1] The Mercusys website shows many of the mesh nodes have 3 x Gigabit ports on the back, so hopefully they can bridge the cabled ports to the wireless uplink.

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Defcon5 said:
Are your phone and the pS5 getting the same stats next to each other?
No, this is the issue.

In the same room, on the same connection they are very different.

- Iphone - 1gbps, speed test websites.
- Consoles - In their own network testing section claiming download speed of 200mb, but reporting issues with 100% packet loss.


Harpon, OK, I get you. I will run a long ethernet into the back of the mesh node in the room next door and see what it says.

Defcon5

6,303 posts

198 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
I have previously had issues with my PS5 reporting incorrect stats.

Have you tried to download anything or play a game?

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Defcon5 said:
I have previously had issues with my PS5 reporting incorrect stats.

Have you tried to download anything or play a game?
Not yet, but both consoles are saying the exact same - so I looked no further.

Baldchap

8,365 posts

99 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
If there's a wired AP in the console room then there's a wire.

Chuck a switch in there and hardwire everything would be my approach.

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Baldchap said:
If there's a wired AP in the console room then there's a wire.

Chuck a switch in there and hardwire everything would be my approach.
OP = I have one issue. I have turned one of the spare bedrooms into a home cinema, home to a 100in TV, PS5 & Xbox. However, said room does not have an ethernet port, thus the consoles will be reliant on Wifi.

Guy Shepherd

8 posts

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
I’ve had decent results with the Devolo magic 2 adapters. I have 4 in total, 2 are WiFi 6 and the others are Ethernet only. Very dependent on how good your wiring is, but they are stable and perform well in my home.

russy01

Original Poster:

4,725 posts

188 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
Guy Shepherd said:
I’ve had decent results with the Devolo magic 2 adapters. I have 4 in total, 2 are WiFi 6 and the others are Ethernet only. Very dependent on how good your wiring is, but they are stable and perform well in my home.
Not sure if it makes any difference, but the house is brand new and well constructed. So hopefully this would mean reasonable performance - will have a look.

Griffith4ever

4,760 posts

42 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
russy01 said:
Not sure if it makes any difference, but the house is brand new and well constructed. So hopefully this would mean reasonable performance - will have a look.
It's all about whats plugged into sockets on the same ring, and if it has to hop across the CU to different rings. The more of either, the more it degrades, particularly if you have noisy items plugged in (cheap power adapters, stuff like that)

wombleh

1,913 posts

129 months

Tuesday 12th November
quotequote all
I found my old unifi kit had bad latency and jitter when meshed. Download speeds and streaming was fine, but real time stuff like gaming suffered.

That was like ten years ago so new stuff may well be much better.