I have a 100/50 connection in my apartment, but I can't get 100Mbit speeds to my office.
My Setup
The internet connection point (Netgear N600) is downstairs in the kitchen
My office is upstairs. A wired connection is provided using two D-Link Powerline ethernet over power adapters into an Archer C7
The problem
If I plug directly into the N600 downstairs I get expected speeds when downloading from the internet (over 10MB/s). However, it seems the powerline adapters cut that in half, with a max speed of about 6MB/s.
Has anyone had any success with upgrading Powerline adapters to get better speeds? Should I try a wireless bridge instead? I want to avoid spending too much money on this.
I tried setting up the Archer C7 as a wireless bridge, but the custom firmware that I can run on it doesn't support the 5Ghz wi-fi, so I would lose wi-fi upstairs if I do that.
I've never been able to get more than 50Mbps out of even a 2Gbps rated powerline, unless the units are literally 5 feet away from each other on the same circuit. You could try doing a wireless bridge, but that N600 isn't really a great unit. Although, the C7 is better. I would see if the C7's stock firmware supports wireless bridge mode. You'll really want that 5Ghz for Wireless bridging. I used a Ubiquiti AC Lite as my broadcast device and an Asus AC66U as the receive device, and struggled to get 100Mbps consistent. And that was using 5Ghz on wide open channels.
OP, you will need to run a line of CAT6 upstairs if you want to utilize the full girth of your bandwidth.
2.4 GHz radio actually has a farther distance it can reach compared to a 5GHz radio, however, it does not operate at the same latency. A 5 GHz connection is much faster, however, you still should get a connection. If you're not doing gaming and or video streaming upstairs then you should be fine.
Agreeing with you. Anything else would be a compromise and/or would involve paying quite the premium and you'd still end up at best 99% compared to a cable.
Indeed. Orbi's or Google wifi are quite costly ($300+), and if thats the level of performance he is hoping to get then buying a spool of 1000ft of CAT6 will only cost you about $55.
A long Ethernet cable along the baseboard is the best way to get fast stable speeds. Save wireless for tablets and phones and power line adapters for consoles.
Best options would be to either use 5GHz wireless or running CAT6 cable, I can get enough bandwidth to saturate my 100/5 internet connection on 802.11/ac 5GHz WiFi but running the cable would be the best long term solution.
The main problem is that I'm renting. The cable would need to go from the kitchen, through the dining room, the living room, up the stairs, across the hall then into my office.
stay away from flat cables longer than 50 ft. Theres a reason that they are called "Twisted Pair". The twisting improves the shielding. I doubt these would give true gigabit thorough put, but if there was a review showing that they actually perform what they claimed to be rated for, is when I would pull the trigger and get it.
