Best Networking Option for Opposite Side of the House

[AaronS]

I just moved house and my brother installed one of the cheapest routers he could buy, so I'm getting about 1/4th speed of my connection, which is 2/5 bars according to my pc, ok for regular internet usage.. not online FPS or torrents...

Which option should I consider the most...

Re-wiring... putting an Ethernet cable through the ceiling and under floorboards until it comes out with an ethernet socket next to my computer.

Getting some wireless N dual band router

Using a home plug system

Seeing if Virgin Media have an option...unlikely..

Thanks in advanced

 

[titreano]

even an N dual band router is likely to disappoint for fast paced fps i'd personally say re-wiring is the best option

 

[Zarf]

Homeplugs work fine, but rewiring is your best option. Get some cable trunking, It's easy to fit and unobtrusive.

 

[AaronS]

Cable trunking seems ok, however it is not my property, good news is they have rewiring planned for soon, so I may have to just accept slower wireless for a couple more weeks.

Is there any real need to get a good router for wired connections?

 

[bremen1874]

Is there any real need to get a good router for wired connections?

Routers vary on the bandwidth they'll handle WAN to LAN. If you have a fast WAN connection a cheap or older model router could limit the available bandwidth.

 

[DJMK4]

Cant you just buy another wireless router and use it as an access point to extend your WLAN? Thats what I'm doing

 

[AaronS]

Yes, I could do that too, but unsure how much that would help, the only place the router would then go as an access point is just outside the room, it would boost my signal but I don't know about the bandwidth, today I've been downloading over a megabyte a second whilst uploading slowly on torrents, but sometimes even general web use without torrents is really slow, I think we will probably rewire, but I don't know when.

 

[Donkeyfumbler]

Rewiring > Homeplugs > Wireless, in that order.

Wireless is still too unreliable/variable in almost all cases.

Homeplugs are consistent, need less looking after and rarely need rebooting but are still slower than a wired connection.

 

[AaronS]

I thought that powerline adapters were still really bad, but they seem to have reviews almost like an Ethernet cable would..

Rewiring might be some time away, so I ordered the TP-Link AV200 starter kit today, the problem became pretty serious since moving my computer and desk around and the connection is a lot worse, in fact I cannot play any games, have a max download speed of about 180kbps, and the secure bank logon wouldn't even load so I had to order the adapters using my mums PC that is connected with a cable.

On the day it arrives I'm thinking of doing some speed tests for comparison, wireless, my mums wired PC and then the powerline adapters.

I'm also thinking of either having a wired router in my room plugged into the powerline adapter so that multiple things can be plugged in in my room, or to use the wired router downstairs and move the wireless into my room, the only 2 differences are 1. My girlfriends laptop is in my room, but she could connect via a cable.. and 2. my mums PC seems to take about a minute to connect when the PC is turned on to the internet via Ethernet, unsure if this is the PC or the router, if it's the router then I wonder why it doesn't take long to connect wirelessly.

If the router does take a while to connect, then I'll definitely have the wired router in my room, constantly connected to the wireless router via the powerline adapter, so that it doesn't have to reconnect every day.

Oh I'm only thinking of using a wired router because I have one spare..

In about a month though... will upgrade internet from 20mb to 30mb which includes the virgin media router/modem, but also my girlfriend will be moving to student accommodation, but.. getting a new mobile so wireless may against start to be useful.. so I have lots of choices.

Thanks for the help.

 

[bremen1874]

Powerline will depend on your electrical wiring. I've installed them in several buildings and they've always worked well. Other people will claim that they’re useless.

Even with a 30mbps WAN connection they’ll only have to run at 30% of their claimed speed to keep up.

There's nothing to stop you hanging a switch or wireless access point (or a router acting as a wireless access point) off the other end of the link.

 

[AaronS]

I checked out reviews and I saw some had the exact same speed test results wired and via a powerline adapter, up to a 50 meg connection, giving 48.5 at both ends, even on the 85mbps versions, I'm pretty sure my whole house, apart from some lighting is one large circuit, then some lights are separate, I know that if they aren't connected there is a performance drop.

But you brought up something I was wondering about.

Let's say they run at 50% speeds, does this mean a 30meg connection would be totally unaffected, or does it mean that 15meg would go through.

If it's like how wireless works, with an error rate that affects the speed then there will always be a percentage drop, even if small, however if the connection is perfectly fine and secure, and it runs at like 90% top speeds, we can just put it down to hardware losses, but the fastest internet I think I can get is the 100 meg virgin media option, and as they keep upgrading their speeds, that's why I got the 200m adapter, over the 85.

 

[bremen1874]

While all bets are off until you actually try them on your wiring, 200 mbps adapters should handle a 30 mbps or 50 mbps broadband connection without much trouble.

 

[AaronS]

Here's my wireless speed test result:

and here is the multiplug adapter:

I've since downloaded up to about 2.5MB/s and uploaded at 150kB/s

Haven't played that many games to be honest, but usually have the lowest ping when having a quick game of left 4 dead 2, latency between 7 and 45ish, and when I play I leave on torrents I just lower the speed limits.

Virgin have severely limited my internet speed for using it so much actually, they limit my upload speed to about 25-30kB/s and my download speed to about 550kB/s, both to roughly 1/5th of the normal speed, they lower it for high usage users at peak times except for 50 meg connections and probably the new 100, but 30 and under have limits, according to their website, but not that bothered to be honest..

It came with a Utility program, this program doesn't need to be running, but you run it once to connect the homeplug's together with a password so it knows which one to connect to., it says 40-60% Quality, 74-86Mbps (it alternates), so it isn't giving me 40-60% of my 20mb connection, it's giving me the full connection up to 83Mbps so I'm happy about that.

Unfortunately the plug sockets in this house seem to be super low and I didn't realise, so I needed to plug it into a a multi plug adapter, one of those square block ones, just to fit it in, any fused devices can lower the speeds, it says on the instructions only to plug directly into the wall, and from other reviews people have said there is no connection at all using surge adapters, so anyway the connection would probably be better if it was plugged directly into the wall, but I probably wouldn't notice it.. I would use a single plug extension but I don't think there are un-fused devices so it wouldn't make a difference.

Will still upgrade the connection to 30megs next month, will also check out prices of 50megs, thanks for help people