The Lemon Fool

Urbandreamer wrote:

mc2fool wrote:Fibre or not fibre and your connection to the outside world is irrelevant to my question.
...
If you have a PC downstairs and another PC (or a NAS or ...) upstairs and the path between them goes through Powerlines, how fast does a large file transfer go between them (assuming both ends have gigabit ethernet capability)?

How long is a piece of string?
If someone else is downloading over the powerline at the same time, less good.

It's fast enough for me to watch stuff on Prime or my wife to watch Eurosport on the FireStick, via WiFi. Our NAS is not fast, but is that the powerline or the NAS? I'm also not running the latest powerline stuff, but a set of secondhand TP-Link devices limited to 600Mbps (AV600) rather than 2000Mbps for a recent set.

Of course you could just watch youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb8jUqSZZxc

TV isn't a demanding test, and the advertised speeds are just marketing theoretical maximums, not real world.

It's absolutely possible to measure the length of the string, as the video shows, albeit with, IMO, disappointing results. Indeed I did the same many years ago with a pair that TalkTalk sent me. Doing file transfer over my then Fast Ethernet (100Mb/s) would run at pretty much that speed, but doing the same though the Powerline adaptors plugged into the same double socket slashed that to only 40Mbs/s.

Relatively better than in that video though where, despite having double-Gigabit Powerlines, they only managed 30ish% of the full Gigabit. Mind you, he is testing the TP ones, which responders here don't seem to have a very high opinion of....

mc2fool wrote:

Urbandreamer wrote:
How long is a piece of string?
If someone else is downloading over the powerline at the same time, less good.

It's fast enough for me to watch stuff on Prime or my wife to watch Eurosport on the FireStick, via WiFi. Our NAS is not fast, but is that the powerline or the NAS? I'm also not running the latest powerline stuff, but a set of secondhand TP-Link devices limited to 600Mbps (AV600) rather than 2000Mbps for a recent set.

Of course you could just watch youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb8jUqSZZxc

TV isn't a demanding test, and the advertised speeds are just marketing theoretical maximums, not real world.

It's absolutely possible to measure the length of the string, as the video shows, albeit with, IMO, disappointing results.

Yes. But were you not asking others to tell you how long your piece of string is, without seeing it?

Let us return to the subject of the thread. Now just how fast is WiFi?

Well of course, like your ball of string and not mine. It depends upon your equipment doesn't it?
I would contend that you are unlikely to get anything like Gigabit speeds.
Indeed a theoretical 867Mbps max is far more likely. That is certainly the maximum of the WiFi access point that I linked to
Significantly SLOWER than one of his powerline tests using a wire. Hence WiFi would be the limiting factor.

Of course, as I said, you could plug your phone into an Ethernet cable. I said it's a horrid solution, but here is someone doing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8X133RXTPI
He does a speed test and it's faster with a cable. Possibly what you want, but not I think the OP.

mc2fool wrote:Fibre or not fibre and your connection to the outside world is irrelevant to my question.

I'm asking about Ethernet<->Ethernet throughput through these Powerlines, i.e. the speed of your wired LAN (Local Area Network) between devices in your home when going through them.

...and that's why I already said that others would have a better response than I could give you. I don't ever use my wired LAN for anything., so I wouldn't have a clue about speeds, sorry.

All I can tell you is that when I tried a LAN connection using my tp-link kit, which I've now junked, it was deathly slow and no amount of tinkering with Change Adapter Options seemed able to fix it. Must have been a conflict or something? Fortunately my needs are modest, and 130 mbps through my wifi is an adequate solution for me.

Hope that helps, though I don't think it will.

BJ

If you have WiFi 6E/7 with 6Ghz band options then real world Gigabit plus throughput is possible, read the reviews on places like Notebook check where they test the latest spec laptops / mobile workstations et al. I've seen as high as 1.6Gb/s real world.

Of course to get that sort of WiFi throughput consistently throughout a house at 6Ghz is going to require what might amount to a very expensive exercise in multiple WAP (or very extensive mesh installation)...

Urbandreamer wrote:

mc2fool wrote:TV isn't a demanding test, and the advertised speeds are just marketing theoretical maximums, not real world.

It's absolutely possible to measure the length of the string, as the video shows, albeit with, IMO, disappointing results.

Yes. But were you not asking others to tell you how long your piece of string is, without seeing it?

No, my reply was to a post by BJ and I was asking him "what sort of real world Ethernet<->Ethernet throughput do you get with these?", where "these" were the Devolo that he was saying were "much, much better" than the TP link ones he had before. I.e. I was asking him about his experience with his specific bits of string.

And I'd widen the "you" to "you all" and invite others to post about their experience with their kit, and while knowing that mine might end up being different, the general level of responses will help inform what choices I might try.

bungeejumper wrote:

mc2fool wrote:Fibre or not fibre and your connection to the outside world is irrelevant to my question.

I'm asking about Ethernet<->Ethernet throughput through these Powerlines, i.e. the speed of your wired LAN (Local Area Network) between devices in your home when going through them.

...and that's why I already said that others would have a better response than I could give you. I don't ever use my wired LAN for anything., so I wouldn't have a clue about speeds, sorry.

All I can tell you is that when I tried a LAN connection using my tp-link kit, which I've now junked, it was deathly slow and no amount of tinkering with Change Adapter Options seemed able to fix it. Must have been a conflict or something? Fortunately my needs are modest, and 130 mbps through my wifi is an adequate solution for me.

Hope that helps, though I don't think it will.

BJ

That's ok, "dunno" is pretty much always a valid answer.

Just to complete the picture, you can plug an iPad into an Ethernet port using a USB/Ethernet adapter like this https://amzn.eu/d/3T5C5Fb and an OTG cable https://amzn.eu/d/8XJLzMM. It doesn't have to be WiFi.

Be careful with USB to ethernet adapters - the firmware needs to be in place for it to work properly on the host/client device, I've been reading reviews lately of kit where they haven't worked and reviewer phone calls to the OEM have revealed that 'ah yes maybe in a future firmware update it will work'...

There's always a gotcha...

Likewise WiFi, powerline, extenders ...

martinc wrote:Likewise WiFi, powerline, extenders ...

All because of physics generally, not firmware not supporting it...