ZyXEL PLA5206 AV2 1000

[urgru]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...68&cm_re=AV2_powerline-_-33-181-368-_-Product

Out of stock, but it's the first AV2 1000 listing I've seen from a US retailer. The product video and pictures show Euro plugs, though.

I hope this means that MIMO adapters are in the channel or close to it.

 

[thiggins]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...68&cm_re=AV2_powerline-_-33-181-368-_-Product

Out of stock, but it's the first AV2 1200 listing I've seen from a US retailer. The product video and pictures show Euro plugs, though.

I hope this means that MIMO adapters are in the channel or close to it.

Thanks for the tip. Checking with ZyXEL.

 

[thiggins]

Product page on ZyXEL website. It's a two-prong adapter, so not MIMO.

 

[paranoised]

Product page on ZyXEL website. It's a two-prong adapter, so not MIMO.

Any guess as to what the underlying chipset is that would enable 1000 Mbps without MIMO?

 

[urgru]

Any guess as to what the underlying chipset is that would enable 1000 Mbps without MIMO?

Weird. I could see two prongs on the NewEgg photos but didn't notice the straight on shot of the Type C plug. I figured it was a grounded E or F. How can they advertise a SISO solution as capable of 1000 Mbps link rate?

 

[thiggins]

I asked Zyxel. Waiting for answer.

 

[thiggins]

Here's the scoop

First, the ZyXEL PLA5206 is a 1000 Mbps, not 1200 Mbps AV2 product. And yes, it is SISO, not MIMO.

HomePlug AV2 has three "profiles" each for SISO and MIMO, based on the bandwidth used, 30 MHz, 65 MHz and 85 MHz. The higher the bandwidth, the higher the potential PHY (link) rate.

Part of the problem is that each profile seems to have multiple Mbps values associated with it. This is like WiFi, where some N300 devices will show a 130 Mbps link rate with 20 MHz bandwidth and others will show 144 Mbps. But there also appears to be a bit of link rate inflation happening.

My understanding is that the ZyXEL PLA5206 uses the 85 MHz bandwidth profile, which I guess now has a 1 Mbps rate associated with it. It used to be known as the SISO-750(Mbps) profile.

 

[urgru]

In stock now and labeled as a "NewEgg Exclusive."

I'd be willing to drop the $130 to compare them to my TrendNet AV2/500's if they were MIMO. I've no doubt the wider SISO adapters will be faster than the first wave of AV2's, but I'm much more interested in seeing if MIMO can improve connection quality in hard to reach areas.

 

[thiggins]

Review posted

So, no comments on the review?
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...s-powerline-gigabit-ethernet-adapter-reviewed

 

[urgru]

So, no comments on the review?
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...s-powerline-gigabit-ethernet-adapter-reviewed

Just disappointment! I didn't think the slightly wider bandwidth would result in 2x the real world performance of AV2/500 kits, but I was definitely surprised to see the "1000" fall behind on ideal condition downlink.

Hope the MIMO products show a real performance improvement.

 

[ChristineBCW]

Thanks for the review. We snagged a few sets of the TP-Link 6's and will be doing installs at several residences in the next two weeks, replacing some 200s.

I'm having a political beef against TP-Link with their refusal to provide modern drivers for wireless adapters; I might have not mentioned these TP-Link 6's yesterday afternoon after discovering that problem. But I'll be happy to see how these new sets perform.

The ZyXel review covered everything I hoped for, although I realize "everyone's mileage may vary" and nowhere is that more apparent than WiFi and HomePlug. Maybe certain dirt-tracks, but that's another story.

 

[smagro]

Is there any explanation for the TP-Link 600Mbps testing much faster than the other 600Mbps QCA7450 units?

 

[paranoised]

Excellent review

Glad to see that the tail-end scenarios are the ones where an apparent improvement can be observed. Hope that the AV2 MIMO adapters produce better results.

 

[Entropy]

Yes, I think we are all waiting for AV2 MIMO. Once we can evaluate those devices, we can assess the whole of the HomePlug market. It's been a long wait.

The Devolo 1200 has been reviewed, and it did provide substantial improvements in some metrics, never coming close to a factor two over its 650 siblings. I wouldn't be surprised to see that pattern holding, but am particularly interested in performance over longer distances. Short distances are better served by ethernet cable (obviously) or if you have to pass a thin wall or so, wireless AC.

So - the article is much appreciated, but everyone is sitting on their wallets until the MIMO results are in.

 

[urgru]

Yes, I think we are all waiting for AV2 MIMO. Once we can evaluate those devices, we can assess the whole of the HomePlug market. It's been a long wait.

The Devolo 1200 has been reviewed, and it did provide substantial improvements in some metrics, never coming close to a factor two over its 650 siblings. I wouldn't be surprised to see that pattern holding, but am particularly interested in performance over longer distances. Short distances are better served by ethernet cable (obviously) or if you have to pass a thin wall or so, wireless AC.

So - the article is much appreciated, but everyone is sitting on their wallets until the MIMO results are in.

Powerline is still going to be better than even a very strong AC signal for some use cases -- console gaming, streaming video from a NAS or home server to a wireless device, etc.

Can you point to the Devolo 1200 review? I'm not getting a Google hit for a real review, just product pages. There are some YouTube videos from Asia of Sineoji 1800 speed tests that look pretty impressive (300mbps+), but that could be same plug.

 

[azazel1024]

Powerline is still going to be better than even a very strong AC signal for some use cases -- console gaming, streaming video from a NAS or home server to a wireless device, etc.

Can you point to the Devolo 1200 review? I'm not getting a Google hit for a real review, just product pages. There are some YouTube videos from Asia of Sineoji 1800 speed tests that look pretty impressive (300mbps+), but that could be same plug.

How so?

I don't personally see how ~500Mbps of usable bandwidth compares to maybe 200Mbps of usable bandwidth (at best).

 

[urgru]

How so?

I don't personally see how ~500Mbps of usable bandwidth compares to maybe 200Mbps of usable bandwidth (at best).

WiFi is half duplex. Router radios can only cycle through one client at a time, and they can only send of receive.

Wired networks (inc. powerline) tend to be full duplex -- they send and receive at the same time -- and they don't have to time-slice multiple clients. A router or switch sends all incoming traffic and all downstream traffic without queuing clients.

Great example of where this makes a difference is PS4 + Vita remote play. If both devices are connected to a wireless router, it's cycling through four states (tx and rx on both clients) to get video to the remote client and then get control inputs back. There's a reason Sony recommends hardwiring the PS4, and its pretty clear from gaming forums that you're going to get a better experience / less noticeable latency with the hard line.

If all you care about is bandwidth, there'll be cases where wifi is better. But if you care about latency or have to worry about sharing airtime with A LOT of active wifi clients (the problem that AC3200 routers like the R8000 are marketed as "fixing") it may make sense to move things to wires even at the expense of raw throughput.

 

[abailey]

WiFi is half duplex. Router radios can only cycle through one client at a time, and they can only send of receive.

Wired networks (inc. powerline) tend to be full duplex -- they send and receive at the same time -- and they don't have to time-slice multiple clients. A router or switch sends all incoming traffic and all downstream traffic without queuing clients.

Great example of where this makes a difference is PS4 + Vita remote play. If both devices are connected to a wireless router, it's cycling through four states (tx and rx on both clients) to get video to the remote client and then get control inputs back. There's a reason Sony recommends hardwiring the PS4, and its pretty clear from gaming forums that you're going to get a better experience / less noticeable latency with the hard line.

If all you care about is bandwidth, there'll be cases where wifi is better. But if you care about latency or have to worry about sharing airtime with A LOT of active wifi clients (the problem that AC3200 routers like the R8000 are marketed as "fixing") it may make sense to move things to wires even at the expense of raw throughput.

As far as I know both Powerline Adapters and MOCA also work on Half duplex. They can also only talk to one client at a time. Thus when you plug in more than two adaters, you must share bandwidth. In fact I believe they work almost exactly like wireless except the medium they use is cable instead of the air (and they use different frequencies).
In my house my MOCA adapters give me about 4ms delay. My 5ghz network only gives me 1 to 2ms delay. Now if more client devices join my 5ghz network the latency will increase, but I guess you could always just add another 5ghz network on a different channel and use that.

 

[Entropy]

Powerline is still going to be better than even a very strong AC signal for some use cases -- console gaming, streaming video from a NAS or home server to a wireless device, etc.

Can you point to the Devolo 1200 review? I'm not getting a Google hit for a real review, just product pages. There are some YouTube videos from Asia of Sineoji 1800 speed tests that look pretty impressive (300mbps+), but that could be same plug.

The article I found here was in german, if you can't read it either google translate it or just read the tabulated numbers. They have two tables - different distances under good conditions, and different distances under worse conditions. The 1200 outperforms the 650 consistently by 30-40% under all conditions. The consistency of the improvement under different conditions is great news, the amount of bandwidth increase is a bit less impressive. Still, this is only one test, and only of an early version of the very first commercially available device. I look forward to a wider comparison.
Nevertheless a pretty good showing in my book.

 

[ChristineBCW]

Three below 30% improvement, three above 30% improvement.

Shortest 233 189 23%
Medium 161 132 22%
Largest 103 76 36%

Shortest 202 162 25%
Medium 141 104 36%
Largest 88 64 38%

(EDIT - just trying Table Edit functions - unsuccessfully)