How Does Powerline Ethernet Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
950 words · ~4 min read
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as awesomely convenient as wi-fi is it
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certainly isn't without its shortcomings random dropouts crummy speeds and
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limited range are all potential problems
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especially if you live somewhere with thick walls or lots of interfering
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signals i mean you could just run Ethernet
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cables everywhere but that can be a messy solution and uh
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good luck suing yourself for pain and suffering when you trip over one on the
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way to get a g fuel refill in the middle of the night
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but what if i told you an elegant way to solve this problem is
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already built right into your house even
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if you don't have a newfangled home with Ethernet outlets in the walls
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i'm talking of course about power line adapters devices which send data signals
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over your home's electrical wiring it's like whoa
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dude like isn't all that copper wiring in
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your walls busy carrying you know like power
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well great question surfer Linus it turns out
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that like sound pitch or the frequency of a wi-fi band ac power has its own
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waveform with a frequency of 50 or 60
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hertz depending on where you live so power powerline Ethernet works by
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simply sending signals through your wiring at very different frequencies
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with modern implementations of the technology between 2 and 86 megahertz
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kind of like how dsl internet provides high speed internet access over the same
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wiring as your landline phone by using a different frequency you can learn more
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about that up here and although electrical wiring in your
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house connects lots of different devices
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instead of being a strictly point-to-point connection like
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conventional Ethernet power line adapters have internal logic
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that allows them to catch the signal kind of like your smartphone or laptop
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can catch a wi-fi signal that spreads out in all directions
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well that's great and convenient in all Linus but how fast is it
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well although the theoretical maximum of the newest revision of power line is about
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two gigabits per second your real-world performance will probably top out at
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around 100 to 200 megabits although this
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is still definitely fast enough for high-speed internet browsing and even 4k
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streaming and from my personal experience it comes with a consistency
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and latency advantage over wi-fi
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now with all that said if the wiring in your house is older or not the best
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quality or if you are trying to place two adapters very far from each other
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your speeds might drop well below 100 megabit due to signal degradation so i
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recommend buying your first couple of powerline adapters from a retailer with
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a solid return policy before making a full commitment
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there are also a few caveats to keep in mind when setting up a home powerline
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network whatever you do plug your adapters
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directly into the wall devices like ups
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battery backups power conditioners and surge protectors can mis-identify your
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data signal as undesirable electrical noise and
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actually filter it out also be sure to
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follow the instructions provided for securing your powerline network with a
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password especially if you aren't living in a fully detached home
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just like your neighbor can easily access your wi-fi network if it's not
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password protected anybody who shares an
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electrical circuit with you even through a breaker panel can possibly get into
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your power line network this is a common problem in apartments
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lastly if you're looking to optimize your speeds try different combinations
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of outlets if possible some work better than others and high draw devices like
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microwaves on the same circuit can actually cause slowdowns and remember
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that less is more for powerline because running many many adapters can cause
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network congestion similar to old-school
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Ethernet hubs and sadly there's not a quick
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over-the-counter pill that can fix uh
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network congestion speaking of slowdowns wouldn't it be
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