Homeplugs (ethernet over power) are fine for some things, but they add so much latency to the network.
Wired is so much better.
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Okay yes, but tell that to 15 year old me who was absolutely AMAZED that you could just… Route the Ethernet through the electricity, frickin magic
Ooh, how do you measure network latency?
I mean does anyone go for power line adapters as their first choice when straight up ethernet is an option?
Me, i’m still sorting the basement before i run RJ through it
The number of people that are anti wires, but also want WiFi signals everywhere is too high.
Powerline is so leaky it is basically wireless with wires. 14x3 is not a transmission line, but it does effectively turn your whole home electrical system into both a transmitting and receiving antenna that just happens to talk to it’s self. It’s an engineering nightmare.
I use them to extend my network from my 3rd story apartment to my garage. Wireless doesn’t reach, pulling a cable would be very difficult and expensive.
I want wires everywhere I don’t care fuck wireless signals give me wired headphones, controllers, networks
Me and my homies hate antennas
… and punctuation, apparently.
I would not, but we had a working system so moving things about should have been fine. I think running over 2 consumer units adds to the latency
As a network guy: Ethernet over power lines can be fine, but you basically need to be an electrician, and have a working knowledge of how powerline Ethernet works before you can get there.
Even if you do, or stumble into a working setup by accident, you can absolutely end up with all kinds of bad things happening because power lines are notoriously bad with crosstalk and EMI, both on the wire and emitted from it.
If you absolutely cannot do rj45/Ethernet runs, and WiFi isn’t viable for whatever reason (or even if it is), look into MoCA. Thank me later.
It won’t cost you any more than powerline, and you’ll get a cleaner signal, more consistent performance, and overall a better experience.
In order of preference, I prefer the following connection options:
- fiber
- Ethernet
- MoCA
- Wi-Fi
- powerline
Fiber, not because it’s faster or better (there are many ways it’s actually worse than Ethernet), but because it’s almost impossible to interfere with, unless someone physically disconnects the cable (or breaks/cuts it). As long as the line is protected from damage, it will give the most consistent performance.
Ethernet, more robust than fiber in terms of physical disability, can be faster at propagating data (the time it takes to get from one end of the cable to the other), but only works over relatively short runs (100m or less, by spec), and it’s susceptible to alien interference and crosstalk. However, it is far more rugged than fiber.
MoCA is half duplex but shares a lot of the benefits of Ethernet. The main improvement here is that coax is commonly present in most homes already, while Ethernet is relatively uncommon in homes, so many homes are already wired in a way that works with MoCA.
Wi-Fi is also half duplex, it can go faster than Ethernet under the right conditions (which are almost impossible to achieve in real world conditions). Propagation is as fast as Ethernet but it has more overhead, and it is much more prone to interference from other Wi-Fi networks or other things operating on the same, unlicensed, bands.
Powerline should only be considered if all of the other options are disqualified for some reason.
Also, anyone using wifi extenders (not talking about mesh or anything, just actual Wi-Fi extenders), should probably not be doing that. Wi-Fi extenders are often just retransmitting the packets on the same wifi channel, which dramatically cuts the available bandwidth. You’ll end up with a stronger connection, but a much slower one.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Just to add that proper mesh systems are distinct from extenders as they will use separate mesh channels for back haul. They also have the “travel AP” things which act as extenders but form a new network on a different channel. You can actually do this with many Android phones as well.
I would say that WiFi is wonderful for those last few meters. A room with a wifi AP literally visible can perform fantastically for several devices in that room. It’s just that back-haul connection across the building back to the modem where WiFi should be down on the list like that. I keep seeing these “mesh” wifi access points that use 6ghz back-haul and shake my head. Better than just having a single access point, but probably asking for pain in most circumstances.
I have 3 access points in my house, where there’s no place where the signal has to go through more than 1 wall. They are fed via gigabit Ethernet back to the modem which acts as a 4th access point. That could be MoCA, and probably will eventually be fiber, but neither WiFi nor powerline would be fun for that. Wifi does short range great, whereas powerline is just a bad idea from the start.
Is it possible to use moca if I have cable internet? There’s coax in my office and living room, so it would be great if I could us them for moca. I know both are connected to the cable coming in to the house because I have set up my modem in both rooms to check which has better wifi coverage.
There will be a Cable TV splitter where the coax comes into your house - possibly a basement or utility room. One cable in, several going out to the various rooms. If you put your modem there, then you can use all the coax runs in your house for MoCA networking.
There’s a utility box on an exterior wall labeled “Television”, which also has a bush planted in front of it. I don’t think I can put my router here… :(
Yes. Just connect one moca adapter to your ISP’s modem/router via Ethernet. If the router already has a coax port you only need a single moca device at the other end. Then plug the coax cable into one of your home’s cable junction boxes. Your home’s probably got a cable splitter somewhere if you have more than one cable outlet. Unplug the cables you’re not using at the splitter. Now plug in another moca adapter at another cable junction box and wire that into Ethernet to distribute to your device, eg. Computer or network switch.
I think I follow. Top is how I have it set up now, bottom would be how I could do moca?
+1 for MoCA
I switched from powerline to MoCA about 10 years ago, and it was a huge step up. Even though it’s half duplex, since MoCA version 2.5, there is enough total bandwidth available to sustain 1 Gbps in 2 directions simultaneously, so it is functionally almost equivalent to full duplex 1 gig Ethernet (except for few ms of extra latency)
I would agree with that, but here in the UK we dont have coax in every room
You only need the MoCA for the back-haul between distant wifi access points or ethernet switches, not in every single room. Unless your walls are made from literal sheet metal, a wifi signal should get through at least one, and ethernet cables along the baseboard and under a doorway are fine too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance
Similar idea to powerline adapters, except over coax lines instead.
You’re quick.
Thanks for the assist. This is what I’m referring to.
Alien interference? What does that term mean here, or are you joking? I’ve not come across this in networking before.
Alien can be boiled down to simply meaning “foreign”. As in, not coming from the wire bundle that is used for the connection.
Crosstalk is the term usually used for interference coming from other pairs in the same bundle, which should be minimal due to the electrical/magnetic properties associated with twisted pair.
Alien interference is any inference from an outside source, usually by inducing a current on the Ethernet pairs, that shouldn’t be present. Usually this results in corruption of the data in transit or a failure to sync (and establish a connection at all).
No extra terrestrial interference was meant to be implied; though, I’m not excluding the extra terrestrials from creating interference; I’m sure if such beings exist and are here, they could interfere, but that wasn’t the intention of my statement.
Alien inference is a very common term in wireline networking. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it.
Alien meaning “external”.
Electrical interference can come from all kinds of places, near and far. I guess technically you might get interference from other planets but I don’t think that’s what they meant. :) Solar flares are a possibility, though.
The users reading this post that think you are referring to PoE are innocent and pure.
Behold. Power line communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication
EoP - Ethernet over Power
Yeah, I was so confused for a few seconds, then I realized what they are talking about.
TIL
Somaetimes gaining knowledge doesn’t improve your life.
I love my EoP but yes, it’s a big noisy bus. Ok for small checkins and pings etc. like wifi every device on the bus takes a time slot away from another. I do want to see what my electrical upgrade from old wires to thicker gauge inside of grounded EMT does for it though.
The only thing they are good at doing is producing loads of RFI and pissing off every ham radio operator in the area.
One of the best no-noise locations I ever did was in a fully powered-down sailboat in the southern lagoon at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas. Leaky consumer electronics are the worst.
To contrast, I managed to work Indonesia from Alamogordo NM despite being in a residential neighborhood, HVAC capacitors and foreign over-the-horizon-radar (OTHR) be damned. Taught me a lot about being patient and picking out transmissions in the noise.
I once replaced a cheap pair of adapters with a more expensive pair. Was night and day for my network stability. I know it’s hit or miss, depending on your wiring and location. But the adapters themselves can differ.
This post is missing some key information. What’s the network topology before and after? Presumably not just unplugging a pair of powerline adapters.
Ok, switch in the shed/office into switch in the garage, switch in the garage into powerline to switch by the router.
Run cable from the garage to the switch by the router and remove 1 of 3 powerline plugs, so yeah just removing a single plug helps so much
What’s the ping? Max time to reach any device?
I use it to get to my basement of a multi story dwelling I rent in. From 3rd floor to basement is such a lifesaver
ping times have gone from 2ms and up to under 1ms, but thats how I got into them was to get internet from ground floor to second floor
Nice!
It did feel like you were saying that removing 1 powerline made your whole network faster, but really it’s only the devices that were connected to that powerline. Powerline really is a last resort for me, paying for high ping latency is what is is…
ping is a tool/protocol-function to measure round trip time. one computer sends out the ping, the recipient replies with a pong, and the initiator outputs the time it took from sending out the request to getting the response. it works on most destinations (just open a commandline and “ping google.com”) so it’s not max time, but actual measured time for a single roundtrip. as processing time is minimal this is considered to be the network-latency.
My answer is in the image I didn’t see the blue dot. It’s average time, not max time, seen in the network.
Not surprised, as we were getting higher speeds the Ethernet wire also was upgraded. The electrical wires were never set up with data transfer in mind + you might get additional interferences from other devices plugged in.
So it probably needs to retransmit packets frequently.
Do not send data over power lines.
Do not send power over data lines.
POE is fine… it’s been fine for a long time.
Active POE is fine. Passive POE is an accident waiting to happen when someone inevitably plugs it into the wrong device.
True, but most people who mess with POE aren’t in the habit of just randomly plugging shit into switches, and those who aren’t don’t touch it anyways cause…scary.
Eh, I’ve broken laptop ethernet ports by accidentally plugging in passive POE into it. It happens if you’re an unfortunate soul who needs to debug those devices.
Fair enough
I don’t see anything wrong with Power over Ethernet, as long as it follows the standards.
EoP, not PoE. Two different things.
Do not send power over data lines.
Literally the 2nd sentence. “power over data lines” is PoE, not EoP.
So - PoE = bad? Otherwise not sure what real-world scenario your second case covers?
To be fair, there are some less-than-optimal PoE implementations like “passive PoE”. I’ve heard stories where the wrong PoE mode destroyed network gear.
Yeah, active PoE is the only kind worth buying. Passive PoE is an accident waiting to happen.
one where i mess up the breadboard and fry my cables/ microcontroller i guess
Yeah don’t do that one
you’re referring to the POE (Power over Ethernet) plugs?
I never knew they would cause such problems, maybe it was just that specific brand?
Powerline communication uses adapters to transmit network signals over existing electrical wiring, avoiding the need for new CAT6 cables and offering a hardwired internet connection in hard-to-reach areas where running Ethernet is difficult or impossible (or where the house owner simply is too lazy).
Yep, too lazy to run ethernet
Not POE, the opposite. Ethernet over power, powerline?
They were called homeplug at 1 point
Those plugs were awful for me. I replaced them with a wifi extender and it changed my life.
I think they mean powerline adapters
Yes powerline, they were called homeplugs at 1 point
Still are, but I guess a lot of people don’t know much about them
