Is this a normal powerline speed?

0

I have at home two TL-PA7020 (AV1000) at home, one of them connected to the router, another to a computer. Using iperf3, I get a bandwidth of around 150 Mbps to send from the computer to the router and the same from the router to the computer.

I read how powerline works and what the 1000 Mbps advertised speed actually mean. Correct me if I'am wrong, but from my understanding, the theoretical maximum speed is 500 Mbps one way and the same the other way. Because of wiring quality, distance, etc. between the two adapters, you will get a lower speed.

I used the software from TP-Link "tpPLC" to get information about the two adapters. It reports to me that the "Powerline Rate" between the two adapters is around 325 Mbps (350 Mbps one way and 300 Mbps the other way). Right in the software, the definition of "Powerline Rate" is:

Powerline rate here means the transmission capacity of your electrical wiring and differs from the actual data transfer rate of your terminal

So it seams that I should get around 300 Mbps, which I don't. Is this normal?

(I made sure it was not the computer adapter the problem. I am 99 % sure it is the powerline the bottleneck. If anyone wonder how I tested this, I have more then one computer on each side of the powerline, so I can test them without going through the powerline adapter.)

EDIT:

Here is iperf3 output if it can help :

Router IP : 192.168.1.1
Computer IP : 192.168.1.100

Computer to router

root@OpenWrt:~# iperf3 -s
-----------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on 5201
-----------------------------------------------------------
Accepted connection from 192.168.1.100, port 52482
[  5] local 192.168.1.1 port 5201 connected to 192.168.1.100 port 52484
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  14.5 MBytes   122 Mbits/sec
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  17.1 MBytes   143 Mbits/sec
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  16.9 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  16.9 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  16.8 MBytes   141 Mbits/sec
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  17.2 MBytes   144 Mbits/sec
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  17.1 MBytes   143 Mbits/sec
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  17.2 MBytes   144 Mbits/sec
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  17.3 MBytes   145 Mbits/sec
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  17.3 MBytes   145 Mbits/sec
[  5]  10.00-10.04  sec   649 KBytes   141 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]   0.00-10.04  sec  0.00 Bytes  0.00 bits/sec                  sender
[  5]   0.00-10.04  sec   169 MBytes   141 Mbits/sec                receiver


computer@-EB1012P:~$ iperf3 -c 192.168.1.1
Connecting to host 192.168.1.1, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.1.100 port 52484 connected to 192.168.1.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  15.5 MBytes   130 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  17.1 MBytes   143 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  17.0 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  16.8 MBytes   141 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  16.9 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  17.4 MBytes   146 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  16.9 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  17.2 MBytes   144 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  17.4 MBytes   146 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  17.3 MBytes   145 Mbits/sec    0    489 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   169 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   169 MBytes   142 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

The iperf3 log of router to computer is similar. If it is needed, tell me in the comments and I will add it.

jonapap

Posted 2017-08-27T15:41:44.053

Reputation: 71

I believe wireline is a lot like wifi in as much as quoted speeds are theoretical maximums and actual performance will depend on noise fed back by other devices, distance, smoothness of power and things like fuses & rcd'd – davidgo – 2017-08-27T16:34:35.520

Answers

0

It is perfectly normal for real-live Powerline speeds to be anywhere between 20% and 80% of the speed the devices themselves think they can do.
And it can vary greatly from day to day, even minute to minute, depending on other devices connected to the same power-grid.

So your 150 Mb/s is actually pretty decent, at 50% of the figure given by the devices themselves.

Tonny

Posted 2017-08-27T15:41:44.053

Reputation: 19 919