my experience in repairing a Powerline adapter and laying out a network

Hi all! This is Anton Komarov, author of the MTS Digital special projects team. Today I’ll tell you about my experience of deploying a network in the house where I live now.

Technology for transmitting data through electrical wiring (Powerline Communication, PLC) is not the most standard way to organize a home network. But this saves you when you can’t lay a network cable or when the Wi-Fi signal is weak. In fact, you can organize a Powerline network wherever there are sockets. But, of course, it cannot be done without nuances. I myself became acquainted with PLC almost by accident, but the technology has been helping me for three years now.

Chance meeting at a flea market

My acquaintance with PLC happened, one might say, by accident. I was walking through a flea market and saw two interesting gadgets lying next to each other – both had Ethernet ports. Turning it over in my hands, I decided that these were Powerline modules: I had already heard about the technology itself and had seen photographs of the devices. I was interested in figuring this out, so I bought the devices for a symbolic amount.

And here is my purchase. Unfortunately, here is only a photo from the Internet; I myself did not take a photo of the device before installing it. On the right is the main station, on the left is the receiver and at the same time the Wi-Fi router

At home, I realized why the system was sold to me so cheaply. Having plugged the large module into the socket, I saw a faint LED light on the router adapter (with two antennas). He looked strange: he didn’t blink, but just barely smoldered. I found the instructions for the Tenda AV1000 model on the Internet (and this turned out to be exactly it) and was convinced that this should not be the case.

I began to suspect that the problem was a non-working capacitor. Electrolytic capacitors are a good thing, but over time they not only lose capacity, but can even fail altogether. Often a non-working part can be detected due to the fact that it swells. Below is a photo from the Internet. Unfortunately, I myself did not take any photographs during the repair, so there is no picture of the device’s board.

Even earlier, two years before the purchase, I bought a regular Wi-Fi repeater at the same flea market. And it behaved very similarly: weak smoldering of the LED without any signs of device life. Then I disassembled the repeater and immediately saw the swollen electrolyte (an example is in the photo above). By changing it, I brought the device back to life.

So I also disassembled the PLC module, where I saw the problem already described. I replaced the part with the same one (I have it in my storage ~~All~~ a lot), and voila – everything worked. Now the device already behaved as described in the manual.

Why do I need a Powerline adapter at all?

For several years I have been living in a house that is quite long. I won’t describe the nuances, but the router (mobile Internet, 4G) is located in the room farthest from my office. It is impossible to lay a network cable along an external wall, and if you lay it inside, it will be ugly: you don’t want to see the wire all the time along all the rooms. In addition, it must also be passed through doors, corridor turns, and so on.

For the time being, I used several repeaters installed in each room. But they are inconvenient:

If one of them fails, the entire network does not work. Then you need to look for which one is frozen, and this takes a long time.
A running microwave in the kitchen where one of the repeaters is installed greatly affects the communication channel. When someone heats their food, network throughput drops. It's annoying.
The overall speed of such a network is low. Overall it was tolerable, so I didn’t change anything, although I planned to.

Well, in the case of the Powerline adapter from the flea market, all the stars aligned. I decided to try to deploy a network based on my purchase. Spoiler: it turned out well.

What about the characteristics?

Here are the characteristics of the Tenda AV1000 model:

Device type: Powerline adapter.
Data transfer rate: up to 1000 Mbit/s.
Standard: HomePlug AV2.
Frequency range: 2–86 MHz.
Ports: one Gigabit Ethernet port on the main station, two on the receiver-router.
QoS support: Traffic prioritization for video streaming and online gaming.
Maximum cable length: up to 300 meters via power supply.
Encryption: AES 128-bit for network security.
Compatibility: Compatible with other Powerline adapters that comply with the HomePlug AV2 standard.
Plug and Play: Easy setup without software installation required.

How I set everything up

*The base station is connected to the router via Ethernet. It works, poor thing, upside down.*

Setting up was easy. I connected the main module with a network cable to the router – there is no need to configure anything. Then he plugged it into the socket.

The secondary module, a transceiver, was already connected in my office.

*This is an explanation for the top photo: which LED does what?*

When two modules are connected to power, the LED indicators on them light up. If there is no network, they light up and flash red. If there is network, the color changes to green, without blinking. The second module can transmit the Internet via both Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Wi-Fi needs to be configured, cable connection does not.

I've tried both. The speed is approximately the same, so I chose a wireless network to avoid getting tangled in cables. I have a lot of them in my office even without Ethernet. Communication channel capacity is 40–80 Mbps, both download and upload. Not much, but it’s enough for me for high-resolution video, teleconferences, and, of course, regular surfing. The main thing is that the channel is stable, nothing glitches, the microwave can work around the clock, the speed does not drop.

Network throughput may drop if several electrical appliances are connected to the line and all are turned on. But the drop is not critical, about 30%. So it's not scary.

The greater the distance between the receiver and the PLC transmitter, the lower the channel throughput speed. Here, of course, everything depends on the communication standards on which the operation of your particular device model is based.

I already said above that mine is Tenda AV1000. There are others, more reliable and modern. Here is a list of key PLC standards:

HomePlug AV – one of the most common. It delivers speeds of up to 200 Mbps, which is fast enough for HD video streaming and most home networking needs.
HomePlug AV2 – an improved version that allows you to reach speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s. This standard supports multi-threading and can use all three phases of the wiring to transmit data. My model is based on it.
G.hn – a standard developed by the International Electrotechnical Union (ITU). It offers even faster speeds, up to 2 Gbps, and better interference resistance. G.hn is gradually replacing HomePlug in the market.
IEEE 1901 — supports data transfer rates up to 500 Mbit/s. This is enough for most home network tasks, including high-definition video streaming, online gaming and video conferencing.

So far I have enough channel bandwidth, but now I’m thinking of purchasing a more modern model based on G.hn.

Bottom line

PLC should be used when there are no other options left. The technology has disadvantages, including the impact of connected electrical appliances. In my case, everything worked out in Powerline's favor. Especially considering that the adapter itself cost me three kopecks. If I had to spend $100–150 (that's what a new Powerline system costs), I would still install the network cable indoors.

It’s interesting to hear about your experience of using a Powerline network: perhaps you also set it up at home or in an office or enterprise? Tell us in the comments.