- #Linksys pltk300 powerline network kit review drivers#
- #Linksys pltk300 powerline network kit review Pc#
That doesn’t really make the Linksys powerline system a bargain but to me $150 is a great price to pay for saving the time and suffering required to get dedicated wiring to where I needed it in the house and doing it quickly.
The single units are selling for $74 (PLE300, single port) and for $83 (PLS300, 4-port). I could see many areas and consumers for which that wouldn’t be acceptable though – especially since 100 Mbps speeds were advertised right on the box.Īs of this writing you can find the Linksys PLK300 kit to get your powerline network started selling for just under $145. Luckily for me, all I really wanted was a connection for Internet connectivity and basic data transfer (SlingBox of course) so even the much lower than expected speeds of 12.3 Mbps were acceptable for my use. The prospect of being able to grab a kit like that and get speeds up to 100 Mbps up and running so quickly was appealing even at a slightly higher than expected cost. I originally looked into powerline networking kits when I was putting a computer in the basement but had no desire to run Cat 5 from my attic above the second floor all the way down to it. The bad news is that for anything else like large movies, system backups, etc, that kind of network performance is really pretty awful and even the aging 802.11b might be a better option. The good news is that those speeds are still good enough for Internet, streaming media (like an HD SlingBox) and moderate file transfers. The result for the off-circuit bandwidth was not as impressive, coming in at just over 12 Mbps or just over 1.5 MB/s. While that isn’t incredibly fast for users that have seen Gigabit Ethernet at work, it’s more than fast enough for low-to-medium sized data transfers and any kind of Internet or streaming media on your home network. Performance at both results was at 62 Mbps or so – equating to a maximum transfer speed of just under 8 MB/s. The second result shows performance between the same two nodes but with the addition of a third node on the network located OFF the same circuit basically I was testing to see if having an off-circuit connection would adversely affect performance of the same-circuit nodes but that didn’t turn out to be the case. The first result shows the best case scenario where the two powerline networking nodes are located on the same internal circuit of electrical wiring. To test the bandwidth between the nodes I connected notebooks to each end that had Gigabit Ethernet ports and ran some tests using “ntttcp”, a common networking test we have used since the days of the nForce3 chipset.Īs you can see speeds varied pretty dramatically depending on configuration in the house. The house was built in 2004 so the wiring is pretty new so I am unable to tell if you degraded powerlines make a difference here but I am betting strongly that they will. I ran some quick performance tests using a set of three nodes (one kit and one additional PLE300) in my home. If you have the option then obviously same-circuit connections are best. Location of the powerline networking nodes in the homes wiring structure also appears to directly affect performance – speeds were better when using power outlets on the same circuit and slower when on separate. Extension cords seemed to work fine however. The surge suppression actually filters out the signal that the powerline networking protocols use so the two units will be unable to communicate if either is behind one. First, you absolutely MUST plug the power cord directly into the wall socket as you cannot pass the device through your typical surge protector or battery backup. It really is that simple, but there are a couple of things to watch out for.
#Linksys pltk300 powerline network kit review Pc#
For probably 99% of users you will need to simply plug in one device to a power outlet near your router and then connect its Ethernet port to your router and then plug in the second node elsewhere in the house and then plug its Ethernet cable into the PC or switch.
#Linksys pltk300 powerline network kit review drivers#
Installation of the Linksys powerline networking kits could not be any easier – there are no drivers and no software requirements at all. And just in case you like that “on the side look” Linksys has included stands that will allow you to mount it vertically or you can even mount it to the wall via some mounting holes on the back of the device.
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