With very few exceptions, a wired connection will be faster than Wi-Fi. Shoddy wiring can lower the bandwidth or drop the connection. You should also be careful to encrypt the connection between your powerline adapters, using the physical pairing button on each adapter, especially if you live in a multi-unit building. Other factors can affect powerline performance. SmallNetBuilder noted in its testing of powerline adapters that some brands of AFCI circuit breakers cut transmission rate in half, though others barely impacted throughput at all.
They can slow network speeds by two-thirds or more. I ran into this situation when I neglected to remove a rogue powerline adapter left over from testing years ago.
With an unpaired AV adapter plugged in, overall throughput on the newer gigabit AV2 adapters slowed to a crawl. MoCA 2. Powerline networking kits can be susceptible to interference from other devices particularly poorly constructed phone or laptop power supplies on the circuit. Appliances on the line can also interfere with powerline signals, so it may not be the solution for improving your internet connection on outlets near kitchens or laundry rooms.
In , we tested for interference from a floor lamp with a dimmer switch and three 13 W LED bulbs. And sometimes a product from one brand on the slower AV standard can actually perform better than a product from another brand that uses AV So we directly tested each kit, using the same techniques employed in our Wi-Fi router , Wi-Fi mesh , and Wi-Fi extender guides.
The modern AV2 standard brings much faster real-world speeds, better reliability, and mandatory push-button encryption. The AV2 standard and the G. If you only have two-prong outlets, powerline networking is probably not for you—but if you want to try it anyway, your best bet is the TP-Link AV Powerline Adapter Kit. To test coverage and performance, we connected each kit to a TP-Link Archer A7 our current budget Wi-Fi router pick in a challenging home environment.
The three-story, 2,square-foot house we used is built into a hillside. The house has Wi-Fi—blocking interior materials, including interior glass panels, a masonry fireplace in the middle of the living room, and a metal-and-wood staircase in the center of the home.
The router and web server were located in a home office in the attic of the home. One powerline adapter was also plugged into a nearby outlet, with its Ethernet cable connected to a port on the router. Note: Tor the MoCA testing during early , the adapters were placed in similar test locations as the powerline adapters, connected to a working coaxial cable outlet. These are exactly the sort of places wired adapters are best-suited to reach.
All of our powerline and MoCA adapters offered wired Ethernet ports, and we tested those wired connections with an Intel gigabit network adapter on a Dell laptop. We tested our powerline adapters using Netburn , an open-source tool that tests networks with the same HTTP protocol your browser uses to read web pages.
The NUC was plugged directly into a spare port on the Archer A7 in the home office, and the test laptops had to connect to it by way of the powerline adapters. Each laptop was tested for download performance and for web browsing performance. The download test simply downloads a 1 MB file repeatedly as fast as possible. We also ran a version of the download test with a 16 MB file to stress the network further.
We ran the tests on all the adapters with an Ethernet cable connected. For example, the adapter was faster than all the others in one of our six tests. Both have dual Ethernet ports on each adapter, similar performance, passthrough power ports you can still use the power outlet for other things , and both are easy to set up.
If you need to wire more than two devices to your network over a powerline adapter, you can also connect an inexpensive network switch to the PAP and have enough ports to hook up your entire entertainment center. Taking those often bandwidth-hungry devices off your network can be a double win. Your streaming box, smart TV, the desktop hooked up to your TV, and any other local devices will benefit from the stronger signal from a wired connection, and the rest of your wireless devices will be more responsive since they are on a now less-congested wireless network.
Both powerline adapter kits excelled in our throughput tests, trading places for the top spots. The PLP kit placed a smidge higher than the TL-PAP on four of the six throughput and latency tests, meaning it is technically faster than our top pick. Either of the top kits will do just as well to extend your network where Wi-Fi is problematic. Those two factors were the main reasons the PLP is only our runner-up pick.
MoCA adapters work similarly to powerline adapters, but use the coaxial cable TV wires installed in many homes to carry networking signals. In either case, cable TV viewers and cord cutting families alike can use the wires already in your home to transmit fast Ethernet-like signals from your router to other rooms in your home. It would be a lot less expensive to use the wires you already have in your walls, instead of hiring a contractor to run Ethernet cables from one side of the home to the other.
Head to our wi-fi router and extender reviews to compare all the models we've tested. Test score. Need to get a better wi-fi signal to watch Netflix in bed? A wi-fi extender or powerline adapter could be the answer. Ryan Shaw. What is a wi-fi extender? Not ideal for bandwidth hungry devices What is a powerline adapter? In older homes, older wiring may not support the connection The distance between the power outlets can impact performance The wiring is also susceptible to electrical interference from everyday items, such as microwaves and vacuums.
Best wi-fi extenders Sign up to reveal. Already a member? Log in. Which wi-fi router or extender? How to buy the best wi-fi router or extender Free ISP routers vs paid third-party routers Best wi-fi extenders and powerline adapters Best wi-fi systems and mesh networks. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share by email. Latest News In Which? Extra Power Socket. Ethernet Ports.
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