What’s the status of home Ethernet over Power?

September 19, 2024 3:31 PM

I guess it’s called Powerline Ethernet these days, but in any case is it any good for simple use on the same circuit? How about cross circuit in the same fuse box?
posted by Tell Me No Lies to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

I have used it in two different houses. On the same circuit, worked well. On different circuits, random dropouts every few hours were quite common. Also speeds way less than advertised.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:44 PM on September 19 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: May I ask the brand?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:58 PM on September 19

Communications is more likely to work across circuits on the same phase. Across phases ... you're asking it to communicate all the way out to the street and through the pole transformer, and back.

Here's how to identify phase A and phase B in your breaker panel. Note that tandem breakers (google that too if you don't know) will double up slots so will modify the ABAB sequence (e.g. to AABBAB etc.).
posted by intermod at 7:40 PM on September 19 [2 favorites]

The ones I have are TPLink although I had similar experiences with Netgear in the past. Sorry I can't tell you the models, I'm not at home where I can check for a few days.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:59 PM on September 19

I also use TPLink.

I have 3 phase power to my house. I have found they work very well regardless of where I plug them in. I didn't expect them to work across phases, but they do.

Saved me from having to run ethernet out to the workshop.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 8:17 PM on September 19 [2 favorites]

I found they worked but put very annoying audible noise on both stereos in the house. I ditched them due to that.
posted by deadwax at 8:31 PM on September 19 [1 favorite]

I had good luck with
NETGEAR Powerline Adapter Kit, 2000 Mbps Wall-Plug, 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports with Passthrough + Extra Outlet (PLP2000-100PAS)

I dont know about phases, but it worked accross two different circuits, and it had less lag than the wifi bridge I tried at the same time.

the powerline one, I could use geforce now and play streaming games without any problems most of the time.
posted by Iax at 8:33 PM on September 19

I have used TP-Link Powerline products for a few years and found them pretty good. Occasionally there will be a problem and they will need to be re-synchronized. A couple of points you might find useful:
1. If you have a router and devices which are reasonably up to date - then the communication speed possible over WiFi may well be better than that achievable via PowerLine type devices. For example I have experimented with Roku streaming products - and the wireless one works more reliably and rapidly than the wired/powerline connected one. So - it is possible that you would be better spending your money on something like a system of Mesh routers.
2. It may be that getting up to date ethernet cables installed is not as tricky as you might casually think. Before spending a bunch of money on Powerline type adapters it could be worth getting some quotes for installation.
posted by rongorongo at 12:48 AM on September 20 [1 favorite]

I use TP-Link Powerline as I needed an ethernet connection in my home office for a work deskphone.

My home office is also in a bad wifi zone. My home wifi network is 50 mbps at source. The wifi in my office from the main router is 7 mbps. The wifi from the small router in my office that is plugged into the TP Link gets 15 mbps, which is fine/better, but you're obviously getting some stepdown.

The only issue I used to have was that I had a period when the speed via powerline would drop to a crawl (< 1 mbps) several times a day. Unplugging the Powerline fixed it for a few hours. The longer term solution was replacing that unit.
posted by Hartster at 2:45 AM on September 20

If you happen to have coax run through the house for cable TV, MoCA adaptors work very well to carry ethernet over coax, and are usually faster than Powerline.
posted by hovey at 4:21 AM on September 20 [4 favorites]

I've used TP-Link's WPA8631P set and found its data transfer speed and error rates very good; I was seeing throughput not far short of what I'd expect from dedicated gigabit Ethernet cabling. That said, both the wifi base station and its associated powerline passthrough adapter were within thirty metres of each other by wire, on the same circuit from the breaker box.

I didn't hear any breakthrough noise from any of the audio devices powered by that same circuit.

The only issue I had with it is that in the interest of easy initial access to its inbuilt web configuration page, it runs its own DHCP server. This is designed to shut itself down if it detects the presence of another DHCP server on the same subnet, but if there's a power outage and your LAN's central router is slower to wake up than both the TP-Link base station and your client devices are, there's a window of opportunity for it to hand out bogus DHCP leases to all your clients, which royally screws up the LAN until after all of those expire.

The latest firmware adds an option to disable the inbuilt DHCP server entirely, but that's not the version that was included in the device as shipped. Fortunately the update process is pretty straightforward.
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on September 20 [1 favorite]

Seconding hovey's recommendation. I use MoCA to deliver internet to the other end of my home and it works extremely well.
posted by JaredSeth at 1:10 PM on September 20

If you happen to have coax run through the house for cable TV, MoCA adaptors work very well to carry ethernet over coax

LOL I love that it's come full circle, because the original Ethernet of the early 1980s was on coaxial cable (e.g. 10base2) for the superior noise rejection.

Eventually they figured out how to get it to ride on noisier twisted pair, which was useful because it could use much cheaper wiring and even reuse old phone wiring. The twisted pair Ethernet you all use now has four pairs (8 wires) but they even managed to get it to work over a single pair.
posted by intermod at 8:50 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]

Yeah it's good, you swap speed for convenience but it's perfectly effective.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:16 PM on September 21