FTTP and Powerline Adapter.

I had ULTRA FIBRE 2 from BT installed two days ago with the expectation of 300/49Mbps speeds.
The ONT is located downstairs on the Ground Floor with the Hub upstairs on the First Floor. I have connected the two units using a Mains Adapter from TP Link rated at "up to 600 Mpbs"
My results, using this setup are around 50Mpbs download and 19Mpbs upload. I am told that it will take up to 10days for the system to settle and that I should expect fluctuations in speed . I doubt that this can improve to give me a top speed of 300Mpbs.
I am wondering if the Powerline Adapters are too underrated and that I should install a pair of Adapters such as AV1000, AV1300 - something more powerful.
I would appreciate hearing from someone who has experienced a similar situation.
Thanks in advance for your response.

In reply to a post by tedsloan:

I had ULTRA FIBRE 2 from BT installed two days ago with the expectation of 300/49Mbps speeds.
The ONT is located downstairs on the Ground Floor with the Hub upstairs on the First Floor. I have connected the two units using a Mains Adapter from TP Link rated at "up to 600 Mpbs"
My results, using this setup are around 50Mpbs download and 19Mpbs upload. I am told that it will take up to 10days for the system to settle and that I should expect fluctuations in speed . I doubt that this can improve to give me a top speed of 300Mpbs.
I am wondering if the Powerline Adapters are too underrated and that I should install a pair of Adapters such as AV1000, AV1300 - something more powerful.
I would appreciate hearing from someone who has experienced a similar situation.
Thanks in advance for your response.

Have you tried temporarily plugging the hub directly into the ONT without the Powerline Adapters in between? That would prove if the slowness is being introduced by the Powerline Adapters.

Your powerline adaptors are likely on two different circuits if one is upstairs and one downstairs. In this configuration performance will be pants as you have discovered. In general powerline adaptors are the devils work and best avoided like the plague. Buying more expensive powerline adaptors is unlikely to help. You will need to use some other technological if you want better performance. Generally I would advise some Cat5e or better still Cat6a cable.

Agree with Dect�s post ... the adaptors are not fit for purpose.

The 10 day thing isn�t actually a thing on FTTP at all. It should just work from the get go.

Agree with the other replies above.
I've had experience of powerline adapters in various premises, and while they do work / can work, the performance is variable and can deteriorate over a relatively short time.
I would never install them in a situation where speed is critical.

And to add to all the good responses the OP really needs to do a speedtest directly connected to the router with an ethernet cable and the power adapters turned off. That at least will check the connection is ok and everything from then is how to get that connection from the router to where the devices are.

Whilst on the whole I agree with the previous comments about use of powerline adaptors I would temper this by saying that they can be and are useful in certain (limited) situations.

In my experience the use between two rings on a the same consumer unit makes very little difference to the speed/reliability obtained but the general level of noise on the mains makes a big difference.

I have used sets of 300mbps rated power line adaptors to connect a smart TV (that didn't have wifi) to my router and had no problems streaming video (the requirement here was less than 10mbps so not really surprising).

Currently I am using a pair (the same pair) to connect a 4g router to a load balancing router which feeds our house wifi (so similar to the OP but in our case this is a secondary connection to our very slow [4mbps] VDSL connection). I can't run a physical cable as we are in temporary accommodation and I can't move the 4g router as that is the only place it receives a decent signal. In our case the 4g is only 30-40mpbs and I get all of that when testing directly from the 4g router or via the powerline/wifi set up to the house so that is fine. And, yes, the powerlines are on two different circuits.

So my advice is treat them with caution, don't expect big speeds, replace with cabling if at all possible but if you can't and you can live with sub 100 mbps speeds then they are probably fine and, almost certainly better than trying to get your wifi to cover the same area.

One of the reasons I wouldn't currently look to go to 300Mb is that there are fewer reliable ways to get that speed over a modest distance. The most reliable is ethernet cabling but that isn't always possible (or desirable). Then wireless and powerline are options but both can be impacted by various factors and are much more variable - and can change over time when new noise sources are introduced ending in a sudden impact on performance. The technologies are there but they are nowhere near as simple as when you are trying to deliver 20 or 30Mb to an end point.

Wrt wifi, if you use appropriate hardware at both ends (router><client) and the environment is right - eg not in a heavily congested wifi area then you can certainly get very respectable wifi speeds. With a 4x4 router paired with a desktop 4x4 PCI card (Asus PCE-AC88) , i'm getting a link rate of 2.1 Gb/s with actual throughput of around 1 Gb/s. Desktop PC & router are on different floors, with at least 15m distance. Therefore I have no problem maxing out my 330 Mbps FTTP line over wireless (ditto for other 802.11ac clients), but of course YMMV. And with 802.11ax (wifi 6) slowly becoming more common, wifi speeds will only increase.

Yes, that can work well but not so good if the intention is to get the wifi to cover a whole house with a dozen random devices (phones, tablets, printers, STBs etc). In this case you would need your 'client' to pass the signal on to another wifi router for the other devices which is not so simple to do with readily available consumer equipment. If you don't mind leaving a computer running that can work. I did something similar using a totally reconfigured hotspot turned into a receiver which then fed the house router but it was not easy to do and not something for the average consumer to attempt without some expert help.

What is really needed is for someone to start selling wifi point to point equipment aimed at the mass consumer market that is easy to set up. Maybe they do make it but I've not seen it other than in the pro market which is just too complicated for the average Joe to set up.

I had one room where I couldn't get wifi and bought a TP-Link wireless extender that is working will with the BT hub. BT also do them but they are much more expensive. Many other makes on the market.

The router I�m using easily covers the full home with Wi-Fi since the home has wafer thin walls like most new builds do. We can sometimes have as many as 50 Wi-Fi clients connected simultaneously if friends/family are over along with their gadgets. Using a tri-band router helps to manage the load but I would be more than happy to use a Wi-Fi mesh system or additional APs if a single router was insufficient.

Edited by deleted (Thu 14-Nov-19 13:10:47)

In reply to a post by ian72:

I had one room where I couldn't get wifi and bought a TP-Link wireless extender that is working will with the BT hub. BT also do them but they are much more expensive. Many other makes on the market.

Yep, but they are not helpful if you need a long range link with special antennae or anything, or, as in my current case, it needs to be a different network. Fine just to fill in a dead spot in the house though (not withstanding the loss of bandwidth if it is of the wifi rebroadcasting type, and if it is of the powerline type then all of the previous discussion applies). A mesh network may be a better solution and they are becoming more widely available now as just mentioned.

Edited by deleted (Thu 14-Nov-19 13:22:45)

You mean like the BT Wholehome Wi-Fi kit

https://amzn.to/32I17Zr £99.99 for 3 of the mini disks, AC1200 version. Uses an app on phone/tablet to get it all up.

The Netgear Orbi is another way of doing this, but costs a lot more.

One thing to note about the BT "mini's" is that they do not support a wired back haul which their bigger brothers do.

Not criticising them at all, however it's something that they don't make particularly clear on most of the literature about this model.

Those requirements are pretty different than the simple solution you were looking for in the post I responded to. For most home users a mesh wifi would be more than sufficient for their needs. I went TP-Link because it was just one room that needed additional signal and because the BT and other versions are quite expensive. But, if TP-Link hadn't worked I would have looked to other options.

Seems odd to have an Ethernet port then

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

In my experience the use between two rings on a the same consumer unit makes very little difference to the speed/reliability obtained but the general level of noise on the mains makes a big difference.

On the other hand in my experience the difference between being on the same ring and a different ring in the same house is drastic in both throughput and reliability (kept loosing connection between the two).

If you have had a difference experience that just goes to show how temperamental these things are. I guess if your requirements are low then they can be a solution but frankly one needs to ignore the guff about headline speeds.

I would liken them to G.fast, sort of works but really FTTP is the way to go.

It's certainly a shame as they are good priced. The port is so you can plug a wired only device in to it - printer maybe.. Backhaul is still done via WiFi. On the larger discs all of them can be wired if you so wish.

the powerline adaptors whilst saying av600 are not likely to be gigabit nics .. Also given the speed you have the with the current adaptors you may not get much more on av1000.

Wireless bridge port then

My setup uses homeplugs.

Downstairs:
80/20 FTTC (full speed sync) -> HG612 -> ZyXEL VMG1312-B10D -> TP link AV600 ->

Upstairs:
TP link AV600 -> 1GB switch -> PC

Speed test


There's something wrong as I'd expect you to see better.

(Just to add to my setup I also have some AV200 homeplugs which sync quite happily with the AV600 and don't show the 600 link down.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

On the other hand in my experience the difference between being on the same ring and a different ring in the same house is drastic in both throughput and reliability (kept loosing connection between the two).

If you have had a difference experience that just goes to show how temperamental these things are. I guess if your requirements are low then they can be a solution but frankly one needs to ignore the guff about headline speeds.

The last point is certainly true. I have used the current set of powerlines in 3 different houses and in all cases they were on different rings. One had an old fashioned fuse wire consumer unit so no electronics 'between' the rings, the other two had MCBs on each ring and one of those also had two different RCDs covering those rings. In all cases the difference in speed between same ring and different ring was less than 10% but also in all cases maximum throughput was a fraction of the advertised speed.

The biggest problem was always 'noisy' equipment such as immersion heaters, tumble driers, dishwashers etc - they need to be kept well away from such things. Oh, and surge protected power strips can cause issues too in some cases as they can have suppressors which 'suppress' the powerline signal which is obviously a no-no. I always try to plug straight into a wall socket even if that means running a longish cat5/6 cable around the room.

In reply to a post by gary333:

It's certainly a shame as they are good priced. The port is so you can plug a wired only device in to it - printer maybe.. Backhaul is still done via WiFi. On the larger discs all of them can be wired if you so wish.

Someone on HUKD who has these minis said they do support Ethernet backhaul.

Thanks for bringing this up. I purchased the Mini's in August and they didn't work as I expected. I assumed they'd be the same as the large version, bar less powerfull. Upon checking BT forum the following was said (saying it wouldn't work) so I sent them back

Can I connect more than one disc to my hub (router) using the Ethernet cables?

If you�re using Whole Home Wi-Fi, you can. If you wish, you can locate a disc a long distance from your hub (router) - for example, in an outbuilding - and have an Ethernet cable connection back to your hub (router). Just plug in the cable in the disc�s RJ45 socket and it�ll join your Whole Home Wi-Fi network.

If you�re using Mini Whole Home Wi-Fi, you can�t. Only your first disc can be connected to the hub (router) using an Ethernet cable. All other discs are connected via wi-fi. You can use the Ethernet port on these discs for devices such as TVs and printers.

However, the good news is that same link now states you can so they must have updated the firmware:

Can I connect more than one disc to my hub (router) using the Ethernet cables?

If you're using Whole Home Wi-Fi or Mini Whole Home Wi-Fi, you can. If you wish, you can locate a disc a long distance from your hub (router) - for example, in an outbuilding - and have an Ethernet cable connection back to your hub (router). Just plug in the cable in the disc�s RJ45 socket and it'll join your Whole Home Wi-Fi network.

Edited by gary333 (Thu 14-Nov-19 19:04:03)

Only your first disc can be connected to the hub (router) using an Ethernet cable

Only ever really expected the first disc to connect via Ethernet, so they do work as I expected then.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Only your first disc can be connected to the hub (router) using an Ethernet cable

Only ever really expected the first disc to connect via Ethernet, so they do work as I expected then.

Looks like we were both wrong then as BT are now advertising that each and every disc will be able to connect independently to a router .

On the white discs, you can use the Ethernet port on the secondary ones to feed a device such as a game system or TV without WiFi. The first one needs to be attached to the router forever by Ethernet.

No idea on the black discs.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Only your first disc can be connected to the hub (router) using an Ethernet cable

Only ever really expected the first disc to connect via Ethernet, so they do work as I expected then.

I would expect to be able to connect all the discs using ethernet myself, because frankly it should work much better that way as wireless bandwidth is not wasted communicating between the discs. I would also expect to be able to power the things using PoE.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

I would expect to be able to connect all the discs using ethernet myself, because frankly it should work much better that way as wireless bandwidth is not wasted communicating between the discs. I would also expect to be able to power the things using PoE.

They're not the product for you if you have structured cabling plans. They are very domestic grade, designed to solve a specific problem, and have a very competitive price point (e.g. Argos).

A friend of mine has installed structured cabling during extension works, into his split loft, where he has installed Edimax access points that are linked to each other as a single logical controller. Sitting in the loft pointing downwards, these work amazingly and give full home coverage. The linking together means you can roam between parts of the house without dropping WiFi 5GHz. He is on Virgin's 200 Mbps service, and thanks to 5GHz the laptops and mobile devices all achieve that speed anywhere in the home.

Many people don't have the time or inclination to site their ISP router correctly, never mind install a structured cabling style environment with Cat 5e cabling in the walls. It is the best solution if you have the money and inclination!

I�ve got the three pack of BT Whole Home WiFi white discs last December and I�m using Ethernet for their back-haul. They�ve been rock solid.

Setup was using Wifi, but then I relocated them to each floor of the house and connected each to an RJ45 port patched through to a gigabit port on my router. The app show every disc�s connection as �Ethernet� instead of WiFi, reporting perfect connectivity.

Mesh and roaming between discs is seamless without any hiccups. Using Ethernet backhaul gave me great throughput without having to pay a lot more for tri-band mesh access points.

That is good to know they can do this!

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

In all cases the difference in speed between same ring and different ring was less than 10% but also in all cases maximum throughput was a fraction of the advertised speed.

The Homeplug advertising, e.g. 200 or 600 Mbps, is what they call PHY and is similar to WiFi G saying 54Mbps for example. You can't get 200/600 or 54 out of any of these. In fact WiFi G topped out speeds of 22 Mbps on a real TCP/IP connection. You can't compare any of these technologies with the throughputs of Ethernet.

Don't expect a Homeplug AV200 to allow your VM 200 Mbps broadband to work in another room at 200 Mbps. You would need to buy the 600, or better the 1200 models - and have good clean electrical wiring.

NOTE: The USA home mains wiring is VERY different to the UK. They don't use "rings" as we have, so instructions on where to plug HomePlug units from the US are likely to be poor advice for UK homes.

For some real world testing (with graphs) have a look at Small Net Builder, for example:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics...

and Solwise have some sensible recommendations:
https://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-real-world-p...

Edited by jchamier (Sun 17-Nov-19 13:35:45)