another 'which homeplug?' thread devolo vs tp-link

after years of suffering with slow adsl connection speeds( .5mb then 1mb-1.5mb, finally 2.5mb max) we've moved onto bt infinity(installed yesterday.

the bt checker predicted 51mb down, 13mb up but the engineer said his machine says 52mb down and 10mb up, speed test on the bt speedtester says profile of 48.41mb down and 20mb up with actual speeds of ~46mb down(tho it does vary), ~9mb up this is connected via ethernet. I was hoping that even with 51mb being the pedicted speed would be 60mb but oh well its much better than we were getting.


with the speeds being sub 50mb would 200mbps be suitable or 500mbps? also devolo or tp-lin? ask as the tp link 500mbps kit is £60 while the devolo avmini 500mbps is £90 at pcworld/currys(the 200mbps version £80 at pcw/currys or £70 at comet)

I think you take your chance on which one to get.

I have used the devolo ones (85 & 200) for a number of years. I am just thinking about buying the TPlink 500 ones as I had one of their routers and that worked great.

Look here its £40 http://www.box.co.uk/Tp-Link_Tp-Link_Tl-Pa511_Av500_...

Edited by iand (Thu 03-May-12 18:29:03)

These were great for me at 40mbps

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160773693933?ssPageName=ST...

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 03-May-12 18:50:28)

The 200 Meg units are not suited to those with FTTC at over 40 Meg, 500 Meg units are best.

As for the tp-link units not had any to play with yet.

In reply to a post by iand:

I think you take your chance on which one to get.

I have used the devolo ones (85 & 200) for a number of years. I am just thinking about buying the TPlink 500 ones as I had one of their routers and that worked great.

Look here its £40 http://www.box.co.uk/Tp-Link_Tp-Link_Tl-Pa511_Av500_...

that's just a single plug, you need at least 2 to create the network. I'm getting the 500mbps kit(2 plugs) from comet, anyone know if there would be any problems getting other brand plugs in the future to go with these or do they have to be tp-link?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 200 Meg units are not suited to those with FTTC at over 40 Meg, 500 Meg units are best.

As for the tp-link units not had any to play with yet.

the ip profile says 48.41mb and I did get 46mb on the first day(tuesday) but since have been getting ~40mb.

I've read about not rebooting the modem during the 10 day period(I'm only in day 3), but would rebooting the modem(as long as I don't do it lots of times, doubt once or twice would cause the line to flag up a fault) have any chance of syncing it at a higher speed(at the moment going from the ip profile I'd say its @~50mb). as I said the speed checker during ordering said 51/13 while the engineer after testing the line said 52/10, we're at the moment getting 40/9(well tbb test saying 38/9).

develo 500's are proven for decent speeds however they are a ton for a pair

i know solwise have some very similiar looking devices coming out on the 15th may for 35 quid each

i am thinking of upgrading to 500's but need gigabit lan's either end to utilize otherwise no better than av200's

i have develo 200 av mini's and they are the fastest on the market hitting 6.5MB/S - this is in a perfect working environment !

so I agree with andrew by saying they are not suitable for fibre as your homeplug 200's need to be in a perfect environment to not hinder throughput

http://www.farina1.com/devolo-dlan500-speedtests.jpg
Graph from review, waiting on John to publish it.

http://www.farina1.com/av200-labelled.jpg
Pretty clear difference in speeds.

Once we get the couple of reviews up that are in the pipeline will chase some more hardware.

I just compared my Devolo 85mbps units with a TP-Link AV500 kit borrowed from a friend.

In exactly the same environment (approx 20m direct distance, maybe 30m+ of mains wiring), the Devolo were returning 12mbps, and the TP-Link 70mbps (both approximate).

When I calculated as a percentage of the quoted speed, both worked out at 14% of their rated (ideal conditions) speed. Maybe coincidence or maybe a rule of thumb?

I might replace my Devolo units, or perhaps just bite the bullet and face the spiders in the attic to run some Cat5.

quite a distance that

Which is best open source and simple tool people recommend for measuring these reported speeds within network with home-plugs or LAN other than just copying large file and seeing the the consistent reading within network panel of windows task manager?

thanks