Unifi AC HD vs Powerline

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
463
111
43
Anyone done any real world testing to determine a decent wireless setup vs powerline ethernet adapters? Just wondering!
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
182
70
28
All I can say is after completely disappointing results with EoP and somewhat disappointing results with WiFi, I went with a pair of Actiontec Bonded MoCA 2.0 Network Adapters ECB6200 and with some tweaks (Windows 10 TCP/IP stack) I am able to get a perfectly stable 1/1Gbps over multiple floors and some old cabling. I can 100% recommend this technology...
 

nezach

Active Member
Oct 14, 2012
210
128
43
Last time I tried powerline, I was very disappointing as well. You have to keep in mind that if power outlets that you will be using are on different circuit (breaker) your results will depend a lot on your electrical install. And if one of the breakers is AFCI/GFCI protected then throughput will suffer a lot.
 

gslavov

New Member
Jun 7, 2017
17
5
3
45
Unless you have a lot of interference or a large area to cover the AC HD is far better than powerline adapters. I installed AV-2000 powerline adapters in a small apartment achieving around 150Mbps sustained transfer but with awful jitter (~200ms of jitter). In the same space a single AC HD clocks in at around 450Mbps (through 3 brick walls and a few doors down from a radio station blasting all sorts of interference)
 

niekbergboer

Active Member
Jun 21, 2016
154
59
28
46
Switzerland
My personal saying is that the only good wireless standard is called "Cat 5e".

I noticed that my problems with PoE as well as wireless (Unifi) bridging were not so much withwith throug as with reliability; especially SSL connections (most everything nowadays) behave in an ugly manner when it comes to packet loss.

I finally bit the bullet and bought 20m of very flat and small Cat6 and small stick-on ~8mm cable channels. I had to file 2 mm bit off the underside of two doors to get the cable underneath (rented place). No problems since. Of course, fiber would fit in that same setup.
 

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
463
111
43
Just to say thank you all for your responses. As usual technology works sometimes and not others which is reflected in the answers :) I really want to stick to physical wire but its a new house and the wife would kill me if I started drilling holes and dropping down cables like I did in the last place. I'll reply back better soon - just about to move a heap of stuff!
 

ReturnedSword

Active Member
Jun 15, 2018
526
235
43
Santa Monica, CA
Surprised your new house doesn't have at least Cat-5e runs pre-installed. Even houses built around 15 years ago usually used Cat-5e for for telephones/patch panel.

My previous home (now a rental) is a 1970s build, and had horrible power sag issues (killing one of my PCs when I foolishly powered it on without a UPS). When I got around to changing out all the AC conduits, I went ahead and dropped Cat-6 for each room. It looks fine enough that a wife won't complain, since it's just another wall plate. In my current home which is a 1950s ranch style house, I got lazy and just have Cat-6a tacked to the floorboards since I intended to move back to the previous house later. Thankfully I haven't gotten many complaints since it's mostly in my home office/backroom and the main bedroom. My run to the garage is going through the attic so it's unseen.

Dropping cable runs isn't really that hard, and certainly you'll be more than capable of doing it yourself. If you'd like you can hire a local electrician or IT guy who do drops. Usually they won't charge an unreasonable amount for each run. Then each run will just be wall plated with a jack. Sometimes you can negotiate with them for just the drop to be done to save money. Termination doesn't take too long.

While you're at it you can have the APs installed on the ceiling too :D
 
Last edited:

realtomatoes

Active Member
Oct 3, 2016
251
32
28
44
Just to say thank you all for your responses. As usual technology works sometimes and not others which is reflected in the answers :) I really want to stick to physical wire but its a new house and the wife would kill me if I started drilling holes and dropping down cables like I did in the last place. I'll reply back better soon - just about to move a heap of stuff!
start by placing a some "sample" cables along the edges of the rooms like you are measuring how much cable it will take and all that. when your wife ask what they are for, tell her it's for when you wire the whole house up. she will then tell you to hide that stuff coz it messes with the house decor and stuff. problem solved.