Setup and Experiences

Experiences

Setup of the network really... it's so easy. You do not even need to install the drivers. One plug was patched into a broadband switch/router courtesy of the auto-uplink feature, and the other was connected straight into a PC's Ethernet port.

There are some restrictions on how you can connect these Homeplugs. According to the accompanying leaflet, they must be connected directly to a wall socket, not through a power-extension strip. For best results they must also be on the same mains ring/fuse line, which shouldn't be a problem for most homes but might be an issue in the workplace.

We'll actually test performance of the device on:

1. Same ring/fuse line/group
2. Different ring/fuse line/group

This is very important and might be overlooked when purchasing this product. As the homeplug works by sending the information through the existing electrical wiring in the property you should only use them on the same mains ring.  

The Devolo AV 200 kits are actually based off Intellon's INT6000 HomePlug AV chipset. The 200Mbps is, of course, the theoretical maximum that the adapter is capable of pumping out raw data. Allowing for error correction and other control traffic, and you're looking at a best-case scenario of ~100Mbps. It gets worse though, in the real word, the typical throughput lies somewhere between 50Mbps and 70Mbps, depending on the state of your mains wiring.

Also the 200 Mbps is a total myth, once we connect the dLAN adapters to our Gigabit network it connects at 100Mbit/s, which we find odd.

That aside, how realistic are those numbers then? Well here's our setup (Gigabit connectivity on all devices):

• PC connected to Switch (Switch connected to Router).
• One dLAN power adapter connected to the switch.
• Second PC connected to a dLAN adapter at several locations in the office.

The first thing we notice is that once we connect our PCs to the AV 200... they all bind in as a 100 MBit/s connection. For a 200 Mbit/s we feel that is weird and immediately stumble into the first limitation, that should have been a Gigabit connection and nothing less. We actually believe this is a marketing trick as in 100 Mbit/s UP and 100 Mbit/s DOWN accumulated.

Now we measure available bandwidth in three setups.

• Setup 1 -- We use the DLAN adapters in the same room, same fuse line/ring.
• Setup 2 -- We use the DLAN adapters in two separate rooms, two fuse lines/rings.
• Setup 3 -- We use the DLAN adapters in two separate rooms far away from each other with the second fuse line/ring being connected to a kitchen with active peripherals working like a freezer and microwave oven.

Here are the results measured.

Now as you can see, if you remain in the very same power group/ring the results are actually pretty darn good. We topped out at a flat 100 MBit/s which is a limitation of the powerline dLan devices as our connections themselves are all Gigabit connections. This however is plenty of bandwidth for internet, HD streaming and even typical file-transfers as that averages out at roughly 12 Megabyte/sec with excellent PING times.

In setup 2 when we take the computer to another room, we also use a different fuse line/group/ring. Immediately we see an orange lit AV 200 adapter. Meaning the connection is retrained. The results really cave in as at best we now see roughly 20 Mbit/sec = 2.5 Megabyte/sec. Still, for internet and online gaming it's pretty good, with still excellent PING times.

In setup 3 we make things really difficult. We move the PC to the kitchen on yet another further away fuse line/group/ring. Here we also enable the microwave, and the fridge was active at the time of measurement. This definitely had an adverse impact on performance as we ended up with roughly 13 Mbit/sec of bandwidth = 1.6 MB/sec, and our ping times became really horrible.

So in a worst case scenario we do still have 13 Mbit/sec available. And really, if you use these devices for internet... it's still fine really. Anything other than that would not be recommended.