Home Wifi Woes -- TPlink's Powerline TL-WPA4220KIT vs Range Extender TL-WA850RE

My current living room and three bedrooms occupy a rectangular area of 10x8m (32x26ft).  The 2-year old Aztech router I brought over has served a bigger area before, so I DID NOT expect to face a networking problem.  Why is the reception so bad here?

Invasion of Wifi Routers!


When the technician from SingTel came to re-install the PON, MIO box and modem, I asked him to conduct a test and here's why:



There were 27 (!!) Wifi networks around me, some with very strong signals!  All the wifi channels were filled!

Walking around the apartment with the wifi analyser app on my phone, I could see that once I enter into any one of the room and shut the door, the signals dropped off tremendously.


Powerline Technology Is The Way To Go... or Not?


I almost regretted not putting in Ethernet cables when we re-wire the house.  But then, to put in a patch panel, ethernet switch, LAN cables... put me off.   Another alternative was to put in a more powerful wifi router.  However, it would be short term because pretty soon, everyone else would upgrade theirs and the problem would return.

I decided to try out powerline technology.  Reasons are:

1. Wire is always faster than wireless.  And I just re-wired the apartment, all my power cables were brand new.
2. If the wifi signal is weak, using a wifi extender (booster) would only make the signal stronger but would do little to the transmission speed.
3. Powerline is the most elegant -- power, wifi and Ehternet all in a single unit.

Am I right?  Let's find out!


Baseline -- Direct from Router


Ethernet Connection to Router
Wifi Connection Next to Router

So the baseline: 200Mbps Wired and 54Mbps Wifi.

Powerline: TPLink TL-WPA4220KIT


TPLink Powerline Starter Kit -- TL-WPA4220KIT


Ethernet Connection to Powerline
Wifi Connection to Powerline

Not very impressive.

Since I had a range extender bought two years back, I decided to try it out.

Wifi Booster: TPLink Range Extender TL-WA850RE


TPLink Wifi Range Extender TL-WA850RE


Ethernet Connection to Range Extender
Wifi Connection to Range Extender
What is happening here?  Powerline is slower than simple wifi booster?

Summary

Direct to Router:  200Mbps (Ethernet), 54Mbps (Wifi)
Powerline: 31Mbps, 19Mbps
Range Extender: 40Mbps, 25Mbps

The only reason I could think of is the circuit breaker between the power line of the router and the receiving unit.  Never would have thought that it could reduce the data rate by so much!

Conclusion:  My high hope for powerline was dashed.  The Wifi range extender on the other hand, surprised me.  I wonder if the powerline standard AV2 would address this problem.  Until then, I just have to do more testing to see what works.

To be updated...






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