Ethernet Cable Alternatives

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Justintoxicated

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So I finally got rid of the network cable across my hallway, yes it was faster, however It was ugly and I just didn't like it being there or having to cover it etc.

My attic makes a simple drop very difficult. I would need to cut into my plaster walls and hire a drywaller who knows how to work with plater to fix them, then re-paint my walls etc.

I always thought wireless N would be too slow to stream larger H264 files mkvs etc.
So I bought a new ASUS Wirelss AC router, and AC network card.


I also bought some toplink 500mbps power outlet transmitters to test in the bedroom.
This PC also has a ASUS PCE-N13 300MPS wirless card (150MPS upload), that was missing antennas. I borrowed some wireless g antennas fro some old routers to to test it out. For the Tp-Link Power Line adapters I tried 3 plugs that are all on the same braker, and in fact are wired off the same run.

Both living room and bedroom are pretty close to the office, with 2 walls (but also 2 door ways that line up through a JackNJill bathroom (so no walls?) directly into the bedroom. The living room has to go through one wall and around the hallway corner.

So the ASUS AC network card picks up the router at 833Mbps in my living room.
The ASUS PCE-N13 picks up at 150/133 Mbps in the bedroom.
The Toplink 500Mbps powerline adapter is shows as 100Mbps.

When plugging in the powerline adapters the Gig router it as a 100Mbps line too (Yellow light). Shoulden't this register as a Gbps line? How can they claim 500Mbps is they are only using a 100Mbps controller?!?!

Powerline Adapaters
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA...tarter/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

AC Router
http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual...&qid=1364760504&sr=8-1&keywords=ASUS+Wireless

AC Network Card
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Computer-International-Direct-PCE-AC66/dp/B009YCGHB6/ref=pd_sim_pc_3

Old Wirelsss N 150/300 card used in test.
http://www.amazon.com/PCE-N13-Wirel...e=UTF8&qid=1364760561&sr=1-1&keywords=PCE-N13


Using Lan Speed light sending 20MB files from the office PC I get the following:
AC card in living room (shows 830 Mbps connection)
Read / Write
281/254Mbps
258/290
277/197
254/244
283/279

TP Link 500Mbps powerline Adapters (shows connection type as 100Mbps)
86/81
86/86
85/87
85/87
85/87

Wireless N Card (150/300) (shows 150Mbps Connection) * Using 2 mismatched wirelss G antennas.
103/90
105/88
106/95
106/92
101/92

WHS Gbps connection hardwired to office computer (also steaming camera feeds while testing).
662/477
656/470
575/453
481/326
420/304
672/456
600/450





So it seems like wireless N is working much better for me than the powerline adapters? I really like the hard line style of the adapters, but it concerns me that they are only detected as 100Mbps devices. How can they be detected as 100Mbps but claim up to 500Mbps? Should I send these back and try different powerline adapters? Or maybe I should just get another wireless Asus wireless AC card..
 
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Personally I'd just run ethernet anyway, when there's a will there's a way. If you have to, use EMT conduit or wiremold and paint it the same color as the wall. EMT actually looks kind of cool so even if it's exposed it will add character. Though if you don't have crown moulding just plan for it, and run all the cables in the top corners, then where you want a jack, drill a hole on top, and the jack hole at the bottom and fish the wire down... hopefully there's no centre plates, then that wont be possible. With the crown moulding you can hide most of the wires. Just watch out when nailing it.

Nothing really beats proper dedicated wired home runs for a network. Though failing that, I'd go with the wireless N.
 
If you want to run the wire, there are youtube videos that show how to do it. It's not that hard.
 
jimh425 said:
If you want to run the wire, there are youtube videos that show how to do it. It's not that hard.
Click to expand...


you certainly haven't been up in my attic :). Since drilling a hole down into the wall would require at a minimum remove the ducting for central heat, It would be extremely difficult.

I can't even kneel up there, but it requires laying on my belly and sort of snaking my body around down the center portion, there is no access to the outer walls and a drill would be too tall to operate drilling down (have to drill up from within the wall below. Plaster is harder to patch than drywall too. There sin't enough space to get to the wall on the other side of the Heating duct without removing the heating duct. Only other option is to cut a square into the plaster wall and drill up into the ceiling through the wood joist. Then use a fish rod to push the cable from underneath up and over the ac duct, wile someone is laying on the blown in fiberglass on their belly to capture the end. Fishing it into the office side is easier since I already did that for a few cables including cat5e/cat6.

Believe me I have run cables up there before... However I want to avoid cutting out the hole in my plaster wall in the living room.

To get a cable into the bedroom would be WAY ore difficult than just cutting holes in the wall, but it might be possible with use of several fish rods. The problem with them in they are not rigid enough to run 30 feet and theres another duct in the way with hardly any clearance over the top of it. I would probably have top run the wire outside the house then pop it into the wall an seal up the hole. Thats how all the coax is run, and it looks terrible... House is 1960's style and there is hardly any pitch to the roof.
I'd glady pay someone $1000+ than try to get up there myself and patch all the walls etc. So yes running cables IS that hard.

Anyways, I'm happy with my AC speeds and my connection showing 830-860Mbps, the router supports N but it slows it down if I set it for N instead of AC.

I think the power line adapters I got were misleading in that they can communicate with each other at 500Mbps but connection is limited to 100Mbps. I wonder if I got some that actually have a 1Gb ports if they would go any faster?

Otherwise I think I may just grab another ASUS wireless AC card.

Adding crown molding and new base while I'm at it for the surround sound would be a GREAT way to do it, but that's a rather large project and I don't know what I am doing well enough to execute it, so I would have to pay someone. I may do this in the future though as the surround sound speaker wires drive me nuts as well, but at least they don't run across the hallway.
+
 
Grentz said:
http://www.tp-link.com/lk/article/?faqid=461
Click to expand...

Wish I read that before I bought mine. Amazon neglects to specify that the port is only 100Mbit in there product description. Most people would assume a 500Mbit device being sold as such, would not have a 100Gb port.

Furthermore if you try to buy the 511 amazon notifies you that there is a newer version of this product, the 411...
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA...=UTF8&qid=1364783501&sr=8-1&keywords=TL-PA511

Hence I thought I was simply getting an updated model. I guess I should have checked TP-Links site, but I didn't think I had a reason to...

So would my best bet be another Asus AC Wifi card, or the Gigabit Powerline adapter? I know it is kind of a crapshoot with the adapter, so what would you all recommend? I guess a better wireless N card would also be an option but if I did that It would have to hook into the 2.4ghz radio on my Asus Router not the 5ghz radio, since I dont want to slow down my AC connection to the living room. Currently my PCE-N13 N adapter seems to be doing ok in the bedroom, but I would like a little more bandwidth than it is providing. I still get chop with the current wall adapter in some movies when plugged into a more practical outlet. (only getting about 65-75 Mbit)
 
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You drill with a flexible bit up, not down. Check out the YouTube if you want to know how.
 
Lot of devices do that. Their reasoning is that you'll never hit the rated speed anyway so no need for a faster port, but if that's the case then they should not advertise it as more than 100mbps... even Unifi's do this. They advertise as 300mbps, but the port is 100mbps. They should advertise them as 100mbps because that is a true bottleneck.
 
Justintoxicated said:
Wish I read that before I bought mine. Amazon neglects to specify that the port is only 100Mbit in there product description. Most people would assume a 500Mbit device being sold as such, would not have a 100Gb port.

Furthermore if you try to buy the 511 amazon notifies you that there is a newer version of this product, the 411...
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA...=UTF8&qid=1364783501&sr=8-1&keywords=TL-PA511

Hence I thought I was simply getting an updated model. I guess I should have checked TP-Links site, but I didn't think I had a reason to...

So would my best bet be another Asus AC Wifi card, or the Gigabit Powerline adapter? I know it is kind of a crapshoot with the adapter, so what would you all recommend? I guess a better wireless N card would also be an option but if I did that It would have to hook into the 2.4ghz radio on my Asus Router not the 5ghz radio, since I dont want to slow down my AC connection to the living room. Currently my PCE-N13 N adapter seems to be doing ok in the bedroom, but I would like a little more bandwidth than it is providing. I still get chop with the current wall adapter in some movies when plugged into a more practical outlet. (only getting about 65-75 Mbit)
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing link rate with data rate.

The connection number you are seeing reported in windows is the "link speed rate" which often is not the actual measured data throughput rate.

The primary reason 500Mbps powerline often has 100Mbps ethernet connected to it, is because the measured "data throughput rate" for "500Mbps powerline" is often around 70-90Mbps in a single direction. Now you have to remember that all these numbers are not an apples to apples comparison.

100Mbps ethernet can run full duplex at 100Mbps up and 100Mbps down at the same time or said another way it has 200Mbps of total usable throughput.

Your powerline networking equipment may actually be running at 85Mbps up and 85Mbps at full duplex. If that is the case you have a total usable bandwidth of 170Mbps.

And since your wireless N is half duplex at 90-105Mbps, so your total bandwidth is only 90-105Mbps.

If you upload and download at the same time you may find your wireless N connection running at 55% or less than the speed your powerline connection runs at. multiple data collisions will drop the speed even more as you try to transmit more data in a duplex fashion. This is where enterprise grade wireless Access points really start to shine.

Running wireless 802.11ac is an option, but you need to make sure you maintain zero interference. When downloading in one direction you get speeds over twice as fast as the powerline option. When running simultaneous uploads and downloads don't be surprised if the connection slows down to something around 15% faster than the powerline option.



Since you have the powerline equipment you can easily perform a duplex load test.

Upload something at the same time downloading a renamed version of that same file from the opposite computer. If you see 10MB/s up and down at the same time, its running full duplex. If you see your download and upload combined running at about 10MB/s then your powerline equipment is effectively running half duplex and 802.11ac is your best choice.
 
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Red Squirrel said:
Lot of devices do that. Their reasoning is that you'll never hit the rated speed anyway so no need for a faster port, but if that's the case then they should not advertise it as more than 100mbps... even Unifi's do this. They advertise as 300mbps, but the port is 100mbps. They should advertise them as 100mbps because that is a true bottleneck.
Click to expand...

We've had this discussion many times. The 10/100 port on the Unifis is NOT a bottleneck.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Lot of devices do that. Their reasoning is that you'll never hit the rated speed anyway so no need for a faster port, but if that's the case then they should not advertise it as more than 100mbps... even Unifi's do this. They advertise as 300mbps, but the port is 100mbps. They should advertise them as 100mbps because that is a true bottleneck.
Click to expand...

This has been commented on the Ubiquiti forums by the developers.

In 20Mhz mode a 144Mbps link has approximately 88Mbps of usable throughout when using 802.11n with WPA2-AES

A 300Mbps link has approximately 160-170Mbps of usable throughput when using 802.11n with WPA2-AES

88Mbps is slower than 100Mbps Ethernet any way you slice it.

Now Ubiquiti assumes that you are going to use their APs for upload and download.

Now as we all know 100Mbps Ethernet has 200Mbps of bandwidth in full duplex and 802.11 wireless is always half duplex.

Lets continue with the math....the Unifi in 40Mhz mode has 160-170Mbps of bandwidth.

So the Unifi (with a perfect 300Mbps link) is bottlenecked when pulling data in one direction, but not when it is moving data in both directions at the same time.

The unifi was meant to be used with multiple users.....so that means lots of uploads and downloads at the same time....right?

That is why from Ubiquiti's perspective the 100Mbps Ethernet interface is not a limiting factor. For the market that the Unifi is aimed at, 90%+ of deployments don't find the 100Mbps ethernet interface a limitation.


The 100Mbps Ethernet is not the bottleneck.

On the Unifi Pro units there are two radios which combined can easily use over 200Mbps of bandwidth. Gigabit was required for that scenario.
 
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/usr/home said:
We've had this discussion many times. The 10/100 port on the Unifis is NOT a bottleneck.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying it is, what I'm saying is that they should not advertise 300mbps if you can't actually get that. It was just an example. Lot of products will do this, they'll advertise a theoretical speed that, even if it was achievable, is bottle necked by it's port speed. I know 300 is a theoretical speed you can't actually get but even if you could get it, you're never going to be going out at that speed. You can have as many radios as you want on it, you will be limited by 100mbps.
 
Thanks Mackintire, I completely forgot about /2 duplex vs full duplex! I did list the link speed rates separate from the actual data rates I was getting though :) I will need to run some more tests before I return these I guess. Although I do think the test could be more interesting if I picked up the 511's that have the Gb connections, then I can see if the 100mb connection really is a limiting factor.

I think 1/2 duplex might be fine though, since these are HTPCs, my server and main office PC are hard wired. The only time they really need to upload is when the backup kicks off every night, but I'm usually in bed by then, and if not I had better be headed that way, so 1/2 duplex is fine for this too!

The problem I have with the power line adapters is that they do not seem fast enough to keep up with streaming media. In this case a slightly faster N at 1/2 duplex works fine, while even though they technically have more bandwidth they just can't stream fast enough in one direction. In the test above it was streaming ok, but unfortunately that power socket isn't practical for the same reason it is not practical to run a line across the hallway floor.

The next closest Socket gives me:
65/58
66/65
73/75
76/66
71/74

So I realize that IF (these were not) the full duplex speeds 71+74 = 145Mbps is better than 105 Mbps from the wireless N except that It might be the difference between being able to stream and not being able to stream. I found my wireless card in the bedroom also likes to connect with no internet access a lot, and I have to disconnect and reconnect which is quite annoying. With the power line adapters I do not have this problem either. I know everyone seems to be hating on the wireless AC, but it seems to work quite well for the HTPC in the living room. I haven't had any problems yet (knock on wood), while streaming.

Any recommendations on free software to test the PC's in full duplex mode.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I'm not saying it is, what I'm saying is that they should not advertise 300mbps if you can't actually get that. It was just an example. Lot of products will do this, they'll advertise a theoretical speed that, even if it was achievable, is bottle necked by it's port speed. I know 300 is a theoretical speed you can't actually get but even if you could get it, you're never going to be going out at that speed. You can have as many radios as you want on it, you will be limited by 100mbps.
Click to expand...

It's not that you can't get it, it's what does the number mean. As pointed out, you can get it combining uploads and downloads.

Same with powerline, it is the bandwidth shared so more is still better, if not for a single link.
 
I think we can all agree that it's misleading for consumers, regardless. Hell, it's misleading for us, and most of us have careers in networking and IT.
 
Grentz said:
It's not that you can't get it, it's what does the number mean. As pointed out, you can get it combining uploads and downloads.

Same with powerline, it is the bandwidth shared so more is still better, if not for a single link.
Click to expand...


There's more to it than that.

Each frame of information has encryption/IP/MAC address/ and other info that has to stripped off, what's left is what you can use to actually move data.

Those part are required to make sure the information you are sending actually can reach the destination intact and within the time specified by the sender.
 
Mackintire said:
There's more to it than that.

Each frame of information has encryption/IP/MAC address/ and other info that has to stripped off, what's left is what you can use to actually move data.

Those part are required to make sure the information you are sending actually can reach the destination intact and within the time specified by the sender.
Click to expand...

IE Overhead of the communication.
 
I guess. plugged into the outlet I intend to use, the 100MB port isn't really a limitation since I'm not getting 100Mbps in either direction.
 
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