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Differing speed up/downstairs

SteveDudd — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:22:44 GMT

Evening all

I am having vastly differing speeds upstairs and downstairs. My downstairs speed is 127 and upstairs I’m lucky to get 20.

We had the now discontinued BT mini connectors so I’ve bought a new PLA and paired them in their place.

The speeds are still the same with the new PLA. I’ve also changed the plug socket the PLA goes in with the same results.

An engineer has visited and was convinced it was the PLA that was the problem and recommended which ones to buy on Amazon as the BT mini connectors have been discontinued.

The new PLA is still running the same speeds as the old…. Any suggestions?

Regards
Steve

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

licquorice — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:26:34 GMT

Clearly a problem with your electrical wiring. I suggest you run an Ethernet cable.

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

SteveDudd — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:29:52 GMT

I have the Ethernet cables connected from both adapters, upstairs and downstairs. I’ve changed the cables to newer ones too.

Should I run a pat test on the sockets?

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

licquorice — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:33:48 GMT

@SteveDudd wrote:

I have the Ethernet cables connected from both adapters, upstairs and downstairs. I’ve changed the cables to newer ones too.
No, I meant an Ethernet cable rather than using PLAs.

Should I run a pat test on the sockets?

Not sure how you would do that.

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:39:56 GMT

@SteveDudd

I'm guessing that you have separate electrical ring mains for upstairs and downstairs, and miniature circuit breakers, (MCBs), rather than wired fuses in your consumer unit?

PowerLine Adapters are known to not work so well when connected to different circuits.I think that it is because the signal that is being transmitted through the wiring gets attenuated by the coils inside the MCBs, and when the two PLAs are on different circuits, the signal has to pass through two MCBs - so gets double the attenuation?

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

SteveDudd — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:44:55 GMT

You are correct.

Is there any way around it or will I be better off going Ethernet as suggested above?

The problem only seems to be a recent one in the last 4/5 months. We’ve never had issues previously.

Re: Differing speed up/downstairs

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:51:14 GMT

@SteveDudd

"Is there any way around it or will I be better off going Ethernet as suggested above? "

Other than replacing the MCBs in your consumer unit with wired fuses, (to remove the source of attenuation), which is probably illegal with current wiring regulations, there isn't much else you can do other than run an ethernet cable, (as previously suggested).

If running a cable is probematic, have you considered if you actually need a wired connection - or will WiFi suffice?

If your device(s) is ethernet only, there are ways around that.