Need Help Understanding Powerline Networking

[Jonj1611]

Hi,

I just need to get my head around something as either I am losing my mind or its the most ridiculous thing I have encountered in a while.

Right, getting rid of my wireless and going the powerline route for various reason so started looking at 500Mbps powerline kits, fair few available and now for the ridiculous part. :-

Can someone, anyone please tell me why a lot of kits advertise 500Mbps transfer speeds but only come with a 10/100 ethernet port????????

Anyone lol.

[Bonebreaker777]

That's actually a good question.
Probably the same type as having a WiFi router 802.11n 300Mbps but all the ports are only 10/100Mbps. So you definitely can't communicate over 100Mbps with anything wired. And you don't even know if the router is or is not internally bottlenecked by the same 10/100Mbps ports for the WiFi part either.
I would say just look for those which don't have 10/100Mbps only.

[aidanjt]

Lack of trading standards in 'Murica, I suppose, it unfortunately contaminates sane countries as well...

[DanceswithUnix]

Because for most people I don't think it matters that much, and I expect it saves quite a bit of cost. Last I looked the low speed port versions were smaller, probably because gigabit electronics run hotter.

500 is a maximum signalling speed, not a transfer speed. We are spoiled by modern ethernet and tend to forget that.

Powerline is half duplex, so 500Mbps is the best you can get over that wire but in one direction at a time. Real world speeds for half duplex systems are generally about half the signalling speed, so I would not expect to see more than 250Mbps out of a 500Mpbs adapter, best case.

An ethernet switch is full duplex, so 100Mbps in each direction for 200Mbps total, so you can exceed 100Mbps total on one port and can certainly max it out.

So really you are really looking at 250vs100 not the paper 500vs100. But if the adapters were so close together that you could get 500Mbps, then I expect you would just use an ethernet cable In my last house I used them on the same mains ring and ISTR got something like 140Mbps. So lower spec ports would have dropped me less than a third of my performance, sad but not a deal breaker.

Mine are gigabit port ones, but as most of the traffic is from upstairs to downstairs which now goes via the circuit breaker board, I get about 60Mbps. What I would love to know is, what speed would 200Mbps adapters have managed. It is unlikely to be more, highly likely to be less and the 200AV vs 500AV price difference isn't that great.

So I don't think the 100Mbps ones are inherently bad, but having said that I would worry about buying something that is made to a cost rather than made to a spec, so would still choose gigabit ports if possible.

Edit to add: I also tend to drive 150mph capable cars in a country where I cannot exceed 70. I think the same applies, the experience is better with more capable machinery even when not using it to the maximum capability.

[Z??]

I ended up running Cat5e throughout my old house when I re-wired the place...

I am now in a shared house and running a gigabit network in my room to a few machines, but have a 200AV to head down to the modem... 4Mbps at best BT line

I really miss that gigabit network and 120Mbps cable broadband

[Jonj1611]

Why did you write 3 separate posts?

Cables are not an option for me, its either wireless or powerline. Plus the original question was why is their a 10/100 network connection on a 500Mpbs powerline :/

[peterb]

Why did you write 3 separate posts?

Posts merged