Need help managing bandwidth through powerline adapter

[Horsem4n]

I have a 3 story house (basement and 2 floors above ground). My internet comes in through the basement and i am trying to set up a relatively latency free connection on my top floor. as latency free as i can feasibly manage anyway.
I had 1 computer to connect a few weeks ago and decided a powerline adapter was my most realistic bet. i dont own this home, so running a line wasn't an option i was given. but with one computer, it was fine. The speeds were acceptable and the real world performance was fine. Had the disconnecting issue, but it seems to have just stopped after a while. but thats not what this is about anyway.
I built a new computer and decided to also build a new workstation upstairs to put it on instead of having it down in the basement. Now that i have 2 computers connected to one powerline adapter, there are some bandwidth issues.
I have the netgear plp1200 set with the power passthrough. one in the basement connected to my router and one up here on the top floor. i have both computers connected to a netgear 5 port gigabit ethernet switch and then to the powerline adapter up here.
Here's what happens. Person on computer 1 is playing a game, person on computer 2 downloads a file (games, updates, drivers, but not youtube videos for some reason), computer 1's connection to the game server slows down going from 20 to 40 ping on average to 300. when we are both playing games our pings fluctuate pretty wildly from 20 to 300.

What do you guys think my best option is? off my head i have 3 ideas, but i need advice on whether any of them will work.
1) Use software to help manage bandwidth so nobody gets shafted by the ping monster
2) buy another pair of the same powerline adapters and plug one in for computer 2 and save 1 for a guest computer (who would refuse to just use my wireless connection). adding the ones connected to the same encrypted powerline network i already have set up.
3) buy another pair of the same powerline adapters and set up computer 2 with its own powerline network.

id rather just use idea 1 if there exists software like that. What do you guys think?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I don't think adding more powerline adapters, in any combination, will help with your problem because they're limited by the bandwidth across the mains wiring (but I'm happy to be proven wrong).

I seems the most obvious solution would be to apply QOS to the clients at the router. You didn't say what your router is but some of them have QOS options built-in.

 

[MichaelCG]

Doubtful QoS at the router will help. The bandwidth choke point isn't at the router or the ISP. It is the link between the PowerLine adapters. So unless you set the router up to choke down to the speeds of the PowerLine...it probably won't get anywhere.

- What is your Internet bandwidth?
- What are the link speeds on the PowerLine adapters?

 

[Horsem4n]

my problem isn't so much the bandwidth itself, but how the powerline network manages the bandwidth. it seems to just give everything to the most active connection.
i only have these issues through the powerline connection. computers wired into the router directly dont affect the powerline network.
either way, through the powerline, i have 40Mbps down minimum and 10Mbps up minimum. in practice, i get 5.7MBps download speeds and enough up to have a stable twitch stream in 720p.
my normal down and up is around twice the Mbps direct wired to the router.

 

[thiggins]

This is not a powerline adapter problem, per se. You have two devices competing for bandwidth. So, in the absence of any QoS / prioritization mechanism, the one requiring the most bandwidth (the downloader) gets it. You are probably noticing the problem because the powerline connection provides lower bandwidth than an Ethernet connection.

The solution is to use priority based QoS at your router or via a managed / Smart switch in front of the two computers.

Adding more powerline adapters doesn't solve the problem. They all use the same frequency space to communicate and therefore the same bandwidth.

 

[Horsem4n]

Ok, I was figuring with 40 down and 10 up that would be enough bandwidth cause it was never an issue in the past when I had worse connection speeds. Like playing Xbox live and another person on counter strike on a 5 down 1 up Mbps connection.

How feasible is using a smart switch to manage the connections? I don't know anything about them. If it would still be a pretty bad option I feel like convincing my parents to let me run a line would be easier.

 

[thiggins]

How feasible is using a smart switch to manage the connections? I don't know anything about them. If it would still be a pretty bad option I feel like convincing my parents to let me run a line would be easier.

The bandwidth controls on most smart switches are limited to physical port limiting and priority tagging.

You would be better off doing prioritization in the router.

 

[Horsem4n]

whelp, i appreciate the help, but i will not get to see that solution through. I was able to come to an agreement for running a cable through the house and shot an order off to monoprice.

 

[News at 11]

You have two options to help with this:

1. Switch from HomePlug to MoCA adapters. The real world throughput of Homeplug is not nearly as high as MoCA. MoCA is more expensive but does a better job, and still, won't require you to run new wires (assuming there is cable outlet available). If you need more information on MoCA, click here.

2. Step up QoS on your router to manage bandwidth. If your router is not entry level you can prioritize services and devices to make sure they get bandwidth first if your running from a limited source.

 

[Samir]

And a third option--running ethernet over phone lines if you have them in both locations.

 

[News at 11]

I would only do that if you work for AT&T. It's possible, but it's kinda ghetto...

 

[Samir]

I would only do that if you work for AT&T. It's possible, but it's kinda ghetto...

No, there's real products for this. I've deployed such devices and they're awesome for getting ethernet over phone wires.

 

[News at 11]

I'm not saying it's not possible. You don't even need a separate device to do it. You just have to splice ethernet into phone lines, it's an old trick AT&T installers use. I was just making a funny installation reference... You're bandwidth is limited in this kind of installation, just so you're aware.

 

[Samir]

I'm not saying it's not possible. You don't even need a separate device to do it. You just have to splice ethernet into phone lines, it's an old trick AT&T installers use. I was just making a funny installation reference... You're bandwidth is limited in this kind of installation, just so you're aware.

You're talking about running 10Base-T over the phone lines. That's different than a device designed to run 100Base-T over long lengths of just one pair of wires. That's what I'm talking about.

 

[sfx2000]

The bandwidth controls on most smart switches are limited to physical port limiting and priority tagging.

You would be better off doing prioritization in the router.

QoS is different than traffic shaping.... QoS is a tag that might ask for bandwidth based on needs...

Traffic Shaping is something different... and so is bandwidth limits.

Anyways - a lot of folks confuse traffic shaping and QoS, along with band limits...

If this helps - HomePlugs will do QoS, but they don't do traffic shaping or bandwidth management... most Wireless AP's will do QoS, some might do some shaping and airtime fairness - note that both Shaping and Fairness is pretty much proprietary - so one won't find standards (or even patents sometimes) behind it.