Finally Fibre (Infinity 2) at home, not impressed.

So it arrived.

Very close to cabinet and check came back with upto 80mb so agreed that with BT.

Previously had up to 8mb and was always getting above 7mb.

Kelly Comms came out, are these guys for real, I've got more tools in my boot than they have in their van!

So they start by changing the plate at Master Socket and asked if wanted the router moved to a better location, so thought ok why not.

So ran some cable and drilled some large holes (only big drill bits)

The socket they put in resembles a breeze block, check it's 2014?

Anyway the long and short of it, seemed to get a few tests, just using speedsmart at time of install around 60mb or so, since that barely seen it above 40mb.

If there anything they could do to mess things up, the fact they were short on tools and ones had were falling to bits didn't fill me with confidence.

BT speedtest says IP profile set at 77mb...must add it's only day 3

Any tips or advice, don't see point in paying for upto 80mb if only going to be half, be as well with the 38mb package

If the socket now looks like the one on this page, that is the standard Openreach setup.

Is the IP Profile actually 77.4Mbps? That would indicate the full 80Mbps sync. Or at least 79995 which is what some people see. Are you using a BT Home Hub? That shows the sync speed.

Are you testing wired or wirelessly? Or perhaps on Homeplugs?

A link to a test from http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html can help to show if speed is stuck or bursting up/down

Yes that looks like it, bit of a monster.

When I use the bt speedtest I get the following (below test was homeplugs) :

Download speed achieved during the test was - 45.46 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 61.94 Mbps-77.42 Mbps .
Additional Information: IP Profile for your line is - 77.42 Mbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 14.91Mbps
Additional Information: Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

The Home Hub 5 shows :

Downstream: 79987 kbps
Upstream: 19999 kbps

Think Broadband test using same method of connection : http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Edited by deleted (Sat 13-Dec-14 22:36:47)

Is this over wifi or ethernet

Odd that you haven't got the green figures and line on the graph - for the single thread result. See mine.

Non logged in users get a shorter test

I'd guess Ethernet

You can see some variation, best to try again at an off peak time.

Test was via homeplugs.

Could they be the issue, I thought idea was virtually no loss

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

Test was via homeplugs.

Could they be the issue, I thought idea was virtually no loss

Yes. 99% certain. Test using a direct Ethernet connection.

At those speeds they can be the issue

So Ethernet into the HH5 and 75mb DL.

Wasn't loss before using Homeplugs, so guess they can't handle the faster speeds then?

That said also weird that had 60mb on my phone via Wi-fi but never getting it again.

I remember the HH4 we had being very poor and got it replaced in the end and it was that at fault, I notice the HH5 has 2.4 and 5ghz support, could this be another factor.

Next question would be, are there homeplugs out there that will allow to get closer to proper speeds or is it a case of run cables.

I would have probably got the guy to run it to another location but once became clear his drill and bits were not much cope I thought no chance, even his stapler was ready for the bin, they were everywhere, it was stuffed with a piece of towel to try to stop them falling out.

Is this the norm for this Kelly lot?

Master Socket - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Slave Socket - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Wireless upstairs : http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Wireless next to HH : http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Homeplug http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Based on that the Homeplugs are virutally a waste of time then?

Depends how much speed you really need at the locations they supply. Don't forget they only suck down the phone line the bandwidth they transmit, so leaving more for your other connections. They don't destroy any line speed.

HomePlugs are very dependant on distance and quality of the mains wiring

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/70-de...

Shows what is possible on those units with modern wiring (less than 15 year old)

I must admit I'm not really upto speed on Data speeds, I just assumed the Homeplugs would supply near full line speed, given they did that with the upto 8mb connection.

The link seems to discuss more about speeds regarding file transfer as opposed to what the results can be with regards to sharing the internet connection.

The house was built around 6-7 years ago so fairly modern wiring.

I noticed using other peoples connections the latency is under 10ms, should we not experience that sort of figures too

File transfer or internet sharing should be similar if using the same data protocols

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

I must admit I'm not really upto speed on Data speeds, I just assumed the Homeplugs would supply near full line speed, given they did that with the upto 8mb connection.

Why would you assume that? There's a huge difference between 8Mb/s and 70Mb/s. Just because your homeplugs allowed data to flow at 8Mb/s in no way implies that they can also support 70Mb/s.

The link seems to discuss more about speeds regarding file transfer as opposed to what the results can be with regards to sharing the internet connection.

Okay, I think I see your confusion. The homeplugs are not connecting your computer(s) to the internet. They are connecting your computer(s) to your router. Your router is a gateway device. It takes packets coming from the internet and re-creates an internal version that it then sends around your LAN. Unless you are running IPv6 you only have one device that is connected to the internet and that is your router. All the other devices are on your private network. Think of it like a housing estate. Your mains wiring is all the internal streets and you have a train station that can be used to get to the outside world.

The performance of your homeplugs is separate to the performance of your internet connection. If you want to test your homeplugs you need two devices on your network plugged into different homeplugs then you can copy files between them. From what you've posted here I'd guess that the speed will top out at around 40Mb/s. That has nothing whatsoever to do with your internet connection speed - that's just the limit of transfer across your mains wiring.

Back when you had an 8Mb/s connection that didn't matter because 40Mb/s is greater than 8Mb/s and you wouldn't see a problem. But now that you have a faster internet connection your homeplugs are not adequate. You might be able to find better homeplugs or it might be that your home wiring is just not up to running data any faster.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 14-Dec-14 17:33:44)

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

Based on that the Homeplugs are virutally a waste of time then?

Not at all, they are for convenience, not speed, same as wireless is.

Andrew? Earlier on I said to the OP "Don't forget they only suck down the phone line the bandwidth they transmit, so leaving more for your other connections. They don't destroy any line speed". However, I'm not sure I'm right here.

Is it possible they drop packets instead, meaning they need to be retransmitted? Did anything show up in your benchmarking, or weren't you looking for that?

Thanks, I guess I assumed they would do the same job just because Fibre has been around for a while and just thought that would be the case.

They came out around 150mpbs then rose to 200 and so forth, I'm not a techy and never looked into it as never knew would be getting Fibre as BT had never been in touch despite registering interest.

I still don't get how on day of install I ran a serious of tests on phone before setting off for work and got better results, now never going above 40mb.

Is an iphone 5s not capable or handling the faster speeds.

I know you can lose speed in a house but I'm talking right next to the HH, so a near 40mb loss seems excessive to me

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

Is an iphone 5s not capable or handling the faster speeds.

I don't know about iPhones, but none of my Android phones, not even the latest, have been capable of handling much more than 30Mbps.

Surely that depends on what your purpose is. Homeplugs are fine for things like streaming media, web browsing, email, Skype and a host of other things. However, if you want to max out your broadband connection or some high bandwidth local service (like a NAS server) then they might fall short.

Looking back at my iphone speed tests while the engineer was half tidying up and after he left before set off to work

11.38 51/17
11.40 58/18
11.42 54/18
11.43 59/18
11.59 74/18
12.00 66/18
12.18 74/18

Basically since that I've only had 30-45mb and most UL are 11-14

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

Based on that the Homeplugs are virutally a waste of time then?

Not at all, they are for convenience, not speed, same as wireless is.

The PC has wireless built in, what I mean is by using the homeplugs to be wired to a degree seems pointless when internet speeds are the same without them.

I could see the point if wireless was 40mb and by adding homeplugs you achieved 50-75mb but that's not the case.

Don't have the day or so to re create a reasonable test environment

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

Based on that the Homeplugs are virutally a waste of time then?

Not at all, they are for convenience, not speed, same as wireless is.

The PC has wireless built in, what I mean is by using the homeplugs to be wired to a degree seems pointless when internet speeds are the same without them.

I could see the point if wireless was 40mb and by adding homeplugs you achieved 50-75mb but that's not the case.

You'r basically trading convenience against performance. I would put the technologies in the following order (where left is greatest convenience of installation and right is best performance)

Wifi -> Mains wiring adaptor -> CATx cable.

There is some overlap here with the best wifi connections beating the worst mains adaptors and the best mains adaptors can equal the lowest spec CATx cable. In my case whilst I don't know what a mains adaptor system would yield I do know that wifi on the older common channels only gets me about 17Mb/s so it's likely that mains adaptors would be better. Luckily it's not an issue because I ran CAT cable from my router to my lounge. I have gigabit speeds if I need them

At the end of the day you have to bear in mind that mains wiring is designed and installed to carry a 240v 50hz sine wave. You can't really expect it to also be good at carrying data. For the best performance you need media that was designed and intended to do the job and that is CATx.

The downside of CATx of course is that very few houses have it installed with sockets in the wall ready to go

Edited by Andrue (Sun 14-Dec-14 20:53:21)

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

The PC has wireless built in, what I mean is by using the homeplugs to be wired to a degree seems pointless when internet speeds are the same without them.

I could see the point if wireless was 40mb and by adding homeplugs you achieved 50-75mb but that's not the case.

I use homeplugs to extend the range of my wireless, not to replace it. The effective range I get from homeplugs is far greater than what I get from wireless, it's not about speed.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by ironnapper:

The PC has wireless built in, what I mean is by using the homeplugs to be wired to a degree seems pointless when internet speeds are the same without them.

I could see the point if wireless was 40mb and by adding homeplugs you achieved 50-75mb but that's not the case.

I use homeplugs to extend the range of my wireless, not to replace it. The effective range I get from homeplugs is far greater than what I get from wireless, it's not about speed.

Done some searching and some claim able to achieve almost full speed with no loss on an 80mb connection, ie what I had expected before delving deeper into it.

Some even claim to have achieved this with 200mbps adapters but one 'expert' makes a claim as follows :

'As a rule of thumb I'd say 200Mbps adapters are only good for ADSL2+ connections, whereas Infinity connections really require 500Mbps or higher adapters to minimise speed loss in distribution'

Would anyone agree with that statement, anyone played around the the newer adapters to see if any increase.

I have been able to get 60 + on an older adapter but only when plugged into the same socket, which defeats the purpose but wanted to check.

As before the wiring is fairly new as not an old house, again some have reports good results even with older wiring.

My FTTC connection syncs at the full 80Mbps but with 200Mb home plugs the best I could get was around 35-40Mbps. I swapped them for 600Mb AV2 home plugs and can now get 74MB on speed tests.

My connection syncs at 55 Mbps and I only got around 35 Mbps with AV200 plugs but get 52 Mbps with my current AV500 plugs.

Ironnapper

I have no difference in testing via Direct Ethernet and via 500Mbps Homeplugs and get 57Mb with burst to 72Mb over both. My understanding is that the higher speed Homeplugs are required to exceed around 40Mb over the mains in practice.

The office is too far for wireless to get more than 2Mb over wifi. But the homeplugs run a hotspot as well so we use that to connect the printer to the rest of the house.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Ironnapper

I have no difference in testing via Direct Ethernet and via 500Mbps Homeplugs and get 57Mb with burst to 72Mb over both. My understanding is that the higher speed Homeplugs are required to exceed around 40Mb over the mains in practice.

The office is too far for wireless to get more than 2Mb over wifi. But the homeplugs run a hotspot as well so we use that to connect the printer to the rest of the house.

Excellent looks like a homeplug upgrade is in order, have you got any particular ones, always used TP Link in the past but they are very cheap, maybe for a reason

In reply to a post by sills:

My FTTC connection syncs at the full 80Mbps but with 200Mb home plugs the best I could get was around 35-40Mbps. I swapped them for 600Mb AV2 home plugs and can now get 74MB on speed tests.

Is that the Solwise ones with pass through, also wondering if the ones with pass through have any negative effects and maybe enhance any potential interference

They are Edimax ones with pass-through, HP-6002ACK. I don't know if the pass-through has any effects as all the sockets upstairs in our house are single ones, so all the home plugs I've had have been pass-through ones.