How can I determine whether a powerline network adapter will work in my house?

Question

I live in an old(ish) rental apartment in the Netherlands. Many of my sockets are not grounded. I'm not sure whether the apartment is tri-phasic or single-phasic (probably the latter). I've been thinking of getting a powerline adapter kit to extend my wired LAN, but I want to make sure it will actually work.

What are the conditions for powerline adapters working (at all, and at reasonable speed and stably)? How can I check for these conditions being met?

Note:

• I have a multimeter if that helps.

Answer 1

If both the sockets that you want to use are on the same circuit then that's as close to certain as you can be without actually trying it. If you don't know off hand but have access to the fuse box/breaker panel for the apartment then this is easy to check by switching one circuit off at a time and seeing of both power sockets lose power at the same time.

If they are on different circuits then the chances are that it will still work but the data rate will be reduced, only expect to see about 1/4 of the advertised rate in real world tests (a bit like WiFi in that respect).

Ultimately the only way to be sure is to try it and see.

Personally I take the opposite view to @Dylan_Rz, if something is in a fixed location WiFi is a last resort. WiFi is for things that move around a lot, if it's static wire it in and free up the RF bandwidth for things that can't use a cable.

In comparisons from a cheap router to the room directly above it I found that WiFi gave a lower latency but powerline gave a higher data rate and more consistent performance. However which works best in any given situation does depend a lot of the way the building is constructed, how it is wired and how many other wifi networks are in the area.