some help deciding best way to resolve networking issues please?

[roo]

current set-up is vigor modem -> r7800 -> powerline to PC, all other devices on the 2.4ghz channel.

I've got the channel set to the one with least surrounding wireless routers which helped a bit with wireless range and performance but i still have some nasty deadspots.

modem and router are located by master socket on bottom floor of 3 story townhouse, signal passing through floors is not great, so top floor, masterbed is very patchy to the point video streaming is awful.

the 2 scenarios that i can realistically do, without pissing the wife off, are

1) if the vigor modem can pass through the ethernet powerline to the modem on the middle floor, that would do enough for the signal to be strong enough to serve all floors adequately. I'm not sure if this is possible and how to do it tho, or if it will massively impact routing performance? latency is concern for certain tasks and applications.

2) powerline to middle floor, which serves workstation and offers adequate speeds (workstation is already on powerline to modem downstairs) but add some sort of additional wireless repeater/hub on middle floor from that powerline, which has 2 ports. again, i'm worried that this will cause a double QoS scenario as the powerlines have it built in, so does the router.

any other ways of resolving this? multiple powerlines to each floor and a wireless hub on each? i can't go digging into walls to move cables or sockets around.

thanks for your help.

 

[thiggins]

You can certainly use powerline to connect the modem Ethernet to the router WAN port. What's your internet speed and what is your powerline speed?

 

[roo]

You can certainly use powerline to connect the modem Ethernet to the router WAN port. What's your internet speed and what is your powerline speed?

Internet is only 60mbps. Powerline is synced in the 600s, never tested actual real throughput tho.

 

[thiggins]

Internet is only 60mbps. Powerline is synced in the 600s, never tested actual real throughput tho.

I'd give it a try.

 

[roo]

I'd give it a try.

The modem is like a pass through device, does it need a specific mode or anything changed to make it work with the powerline or does the powerline also act as a pass through? So I can just plug it in and it will do its thing

 

[thiggins]

Powerline acts as a transparent bridge. Plug the modem Ethernet into one powerline adapter, plug the router WAN port into another.

 

[roo]

Powerline acts as a transparent bridge. Plug the modem Ethernet into one powerline adapter, plug the router WAN port into another.

up and running and its working. nice even 2.4ghz all through house and into garden now, so that's great.

if my powerline adaptors have a QoS system on them that i can't deactivate or change, is it best to turn the QoS off on the r7800 seeing as the powerlines are doing "somthing".

socket -> vigor modem -> powerline -> powerline -> r7800 -> devices
................................................QoS...............QoS..........QoS

 

[degrub]

the only QOS the powerline modems may do is act as a rate limiter for all packets. But really, they are transparent to the network. The don't do anything but translate received packets from an ethernet cable to a power wire and vice versa. THAT IS ALL.

 

[thiggins]

if my powerline adaptors have a QoS system on them that i can't deactivate or change, is it best to turn the QoS off on the r7800 seeing as the powerlines are doing "somthing".

As @degrub said, powerline QoS is just used to manage packets on that link. It has nothing to do with your router QoS.

 

[roo]

the only QOS the powerline modems may do is act as a rate limiter for all packets. But really, they are transparent to the network. The don't do anything but translate received packets from an ethernet cable to a power wire and vice versa. THAT IS ALL.

Why does it have the option of prioritising games, video, web and something else? Is this just placebo then?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Why does it have the option of prioritising games, video, web and something else? Is this just placebo then?

I don't think you said what particular powerline adapters you have, but the ones I've used support a primitive form of QoS. It's not the same sort of QoS that IP has and it only supports 4 priority levels. It's also important to note that the "priority" is applied to all data sent from a particular adapter. It has no effect on received data and only effects your local powerline network (not internet traffic like your router's QoS would).

As you only have two powerline adapters the priority (QoS) probably won't make a difference as there should be no contention. But it's probably best to set each adapter to "high" priority to minimise latency.

So when the manual says something like "prioritise games" all it means is if your game console is plugged into that adapter then all data sent from that device will be given a higher priority on your powerline network than other powerline adapters.

 

[roo]

I don't think you said what particular powerline adapters you have, but the ones I've used support a primitive form of QoS. It's not the same sort of QoS that IP has and it only supports 4 priority levels. It's also important to note that the "priority" is applied to all data sent from a particular adapter. It has no effect on received data and only effects your local powerline network (not internet traffic like your router's QoS would).

As you only have two powerline adapters the priority (QoS) probably won't make a difference as there should be no contention. But it's probably best to set each adapter to "high" priority to minimise latency.

So when the manual says something like "prioritise games" all it means is if your game console is plugged into that adapter then all data sent from that device will be given a higher priority on your powerline network than other powerline adapters.

tplink 9020p's. they do seem to introduce buffer bloat vs direct to the router. i can live with this now as the wifi coverage is far better