Powerline adapter: 7 Tips on the network via the socket

Before you buy a new Powerline adapter kit, you should make sure that there are enough free wall sockets in your household. If all household wall sockets are already equipped with individual devices or multiple sockets, only one Powerline adapter kit with looped sockets will be suitable for you. The transmission power of a Powerline adapter drops considerably at a multiple socket together with other power consumers.


1. Powerline adapter with or without integrated socket


The pass-through adapters also have a built-in filter that prevents the looped current pickups from interfering with the powerline transmission. PLC adapters with looped-through socket are becoming more and more popular, as there is now a striking lack of free wall sockets in almost every household.


2. Superior Powerline standard: Set to HomePlugAV 2


Lesetipp: 5 current powerline adapters in the test


3. Powerline speed: estimate net transfer rates


But: In the first series of a new generation of PLC adapters, many manufacturers initially do without the looped-through socket. Unfortunately, this phenomenon can also be observed in the current 1,200 powerline kits. If all wall sockets are used in your home, you should therefore wait for the successor model with an integrated socket - or create a little more money for the kits with an integrated socket.


4. Power saving mode: Saving energy at Powerline


Modern Powerline adapters of the standard HomePlug AV 2 have a decisive advantage over older standards. With HomePlug AV 2, the MIMO technology has been introduced for the first time for data transmission in the power grid.


The multiple-input multiple-output technology allows PLC adapters to use all three wires of a power network in any combination to transfer data. For example, two PLC adapters from three different cable pairs (Phase-Neutral, Phase-Earth, Neutral-Earth) are looking for the most favorable ones for data transmission.


This offers decisive advantages for the not always homogeneous power installation in residential buildings. With HomePlug AV-2 kits, relatively good connection performance can now be achieved even on rather unfavorable transmission distances. In the previous standards HomePlug 1.0 and HomePlug AV, only the pair of phase neutralizers could be used.


For this reason, HomePlug AV-2 adapter kits offer very significant improvements in range and transmission performance. If you are considering the purchase of a PLC adapter kit, be sure to install a Home-Plug-AV-2 kit.


Download: HomePlug standards at a glance


Do not allow (gross) transmission rates of 200 Mbps, 500 Mbps or even 1200 Mbps to be dazzled with Powerline adapters. Similar to WLAN connections, the transfer rates printed on the pack of a Powerline adapter kit are more misleading than helpful. This value represents the gross data rate or link rate, which includes the total amount of data transferred between two PLC adapters during data transmission under ideal conditions.


In addition to the actually transmitted user data (film file, photos, etc.), all protocol, correction and control data are also included in this value, without which the transmission of the user data can not take place at all. The log data, which is also referred to as an overhead, account for about 55 to 70 percent at Powerline. In other words, the share of the user data (net data) transferred between two PLC adapters amounts to 30 to a maximum of 45 percent. Correspondingly, the meaningful net data rate only takes into account the user data transferred per unit of time.


Since the share of the transferred user data for PLC is only about 30 to 45 percent of all data flowing per unit of time, the net data rate also corresponds to about 30 to 45 percent of the link rate. A 1.200 adapter kits will transfer at best conditions with a net data rate of about 400 Mbps.


Some Powerline adapters do not seem to change to the power-saving mode, even though the devices would have to support such a device, according to the manufacturer.


5. Use Powerline tools


Any Powerline adapter from the HomePlug AV standard (from the link rate of 200 Mbit / s) can switch to the energy saving mode. In the energy saving mode, the self-consumption of the adapter generally drops below 1 Watt. However, the power-saving mode can only occur if the LAN port of the adapter has no connection (link) to another network device.


This can be achieved by two methods: either simply disconnect the LAN cable from the Powerline adapter or switch off the device at the other end of the LAN cable (PC, router, switch, etc.). As soon as the Powerline adapter no longer receives a LAN signal, it still leaves a certain idle time, which can last between 30 seconds and 10 minutes, depending on the manufacturer. If this time has elapsed, the Powerline adapter switches to the energy saving mode. When the LAN device connected to the adapter is powered up or powered up, the PLC adapter returns to the operating mode.


6. Non-compatible Power LANs: Connection HomePlug 1.0 and AV


For some PLC adapters, such as Zyxel's PLA5405 kit, you can use the supplied Powerline tool to set whether the power-saving mode of an adapter is to be activated. In the delivery state, the energy saving mode is switched off and must be activated separately. Devolo's adapters can also be switched on and off in its Powerline Tool Cockpit.


Manufacturer AVM offers the possibility to switch its adapters with Gigabit port to the slow, but energy-saving fast Ethernet mode. This makes sense, especially if the connection distances are poorer, if the link rates between the adapters do not exceed 200 Mbps and therefore no gigabit LAN speed is required.


Plug in, press the button twice and the Powerline connection is on. Why should you install a Powerline tool on the PC?


7. Powerline spectrum in the Fritzbox display


Powerline tools provide the user with a PC overview of all PLC adapters in the home network. The tools show the current link quality (link or gross data rate) between two PowerLine adapters - some tools do not give an average link rate, but separate an uplink and a downlink rate.

Most tools also specify whether the Powerline connection is already encrypted or not. This info is important because two adapters returned to factory settings can easily connect to one another via the unencrypted standard password HomePlug AV - but then also connect to other PLC adapters, for example, from the neighboring apartment, provided they are not encrypted >

Important are the tools of the manufacturers but also for the loading new firmware. If you are using a lot of adapters in a family house, you are also good at giving the PLCs a meaningful name for the localization. This makes the information on link rates and associated connection quality much easier to assign and possible vulnerabilities.


How to connect LAN devices that are integrated into different non-compatible Powerline networks (Power LANs)?


To connect two incompatible power LANs, such as HomePlug 1.0 and Homeplug AV, in a building, you build a bridge between the two connection standards. To do this, choose two free wall sockets that are located next to each other in the same room. Now you plug a HomePlug 1.0 adapter into the one and a HomePlug AV adapter into the other socket.


The HomePlug 1.0 adapter is now connected to the HomePlug 1.0 Powerline network via its encryption key. Then plug the HomePlug AV adapter into the HomePlug AV Powerline network. Then you connect the two different adapters simply with a common patch cable - and the bridge between the two, incompatible HomePlug networks is established


The Powerline adapters are displayed in the Fritzbox router menu under Home network / Network in the list Devices and Users like any host (PC, Notebook, NAS, etc.)


However, PLC adapters do not have their own IP address, but only a MAC address, unlike PCs and other network users that have a MAC address and an IP address. In the column under IP address, a "-" appears as a placeholder for the PLC adapter. In the Connection column, PLC adapters are identified by a blue HomePlug connection symbol similar to a house with a roof.