[Wylug-discuss] Technical enlightenment request

[Anne Wilson]

On 29/07/2015 10:46, Graham Whaley wrote:
> Ah, I think I see the confusion here....
>  I was talking about 'power over ether' - where you send power over a
> network cable.
>  I think what you have is 'ether over power' - where you send ethernet
> over a power cable - sort of the complete opposite :-)
>  What you have are often called 'powerline adapters' I think. I have
> some of those so I can run my printer up in the loft without having to
> find a way to run an extra cable 3 floors.

Exactly so.  I tried cabling originally, but it's extremely difficult to
get around some spaces.  One line had to go underground outside to get
to my office.  It worked, but I became anxious that weathering would
gradually degrade it, so when I decorated and reorganised the room where
my NAS and router are I decided to try this route.

> The technology of powerline adapters seems to be ever improving. Mine
> are probably 2 years old and have been rock solid on reliability, but
> I never test them on their bandwidth capability.
> Nicely, there are powerline adapter standards, and these days I think
> most of the brands will probably work together OK. But, I would
> suspect the 'network' of them will run at the speed of the slowest
> one. If you are having bandwidth issues you may want to look at what
> the current ones speed ratings are (normally measured in megabits/s).
> Top whack used to be 150mbps, but now I see 500mbps advertised.
> 
>From memory, I think these are 300mbps.

> You could probably do a quick test of how well they are actually
> working by timing a large transfer to your NAS to give you a feel for
> actual speed as well?
> 
The enormous variations I have been getting are what started me worrying
about this.  When all is well a 1.3GB mp4 file transfers nicely.  As I
explained in another message, when I have made the mistake of queueing
files to transfer while I'm away from the keyboard is when I have become
unstuck.

I feel more confident that I understand now, thanks to you and to Gary,
so I'll grit my teeth and try to be more patient :-)

Thanks to you both.

Anne