Forum Discussion

SimZZZ's avatar
SimZZZ
Joining in
2 years ago

Slow speeds with Powerline

I have a Hub3 with Powerline adaptors sending Wifi to my upstairs and garage. I have recently moved from BT, which I new regret, as I have nothing but trouble and instabilty with Virgin.

With my old (and I mean OLD, it was 3 years old) BT router I have no problems getting maximum broadband speeds upstairs through my Powerline. But with Virgin I find the maximum speeds I can reach are around 70Mb/s (out of 250-270Mbs dowbstairs). If I connect direct to the router via ethernet cable I get full speeds, so it's something to so with how it reacts to Powerline. 

I have seen lots of similar posts from people, with no solutions. Interesting, I was at my sister's in London over the weekend, and she has exactly the same issue, absolutely identical. 

 

Has anyone managed to find a solution?

  • carl_pearce's avatar
    carl_pearce
    Community elder

    Powerline adapters are limited by several areas:

    • Age of house wiring.
    • Ethernet port speed on powerline adapter (Some are 100Mbps, some 1Gbps).
    • Distant between the powerline adapters over house wiring.

    70Mbps is pretty good to be honest.

    What is the exact model of powerline adapters you have?

  • The actual throughput speeds on the Powerline system is between 300Mbs and 800Mbs as measured by the app and independently. As I said, I was getting 3-4 times the speed I get with Virgin through my old BT router, so it's not the Powerline that's the problem.

    • carl_pearce's avatar
      carl_pearce
      Community elder

      So you had Fibre broadband with BT?

      If you access the HUB and sign in, then check the 'Connected Devices' section you should see the connection speed of each wired and wireless device.

      What does the powerline adapter show? (Should be 100 or 1000).

  • speed is 1000 as expected. and yes, we had fibre with BT and we had same speeds downstairs as upstairs. I have found lots of posts online with exact same problem, and my sister has identical setup and also has same problem

    • carl_pearce's avatar
      carl_pearce
      Community elder

      And what broadband connection did you have with BT?

      Edit: Not sure then. If the HUB has negotiated 1Gbps connection speed with the powerline adapters I don't see how the HUB would be limiting the speed. Did you use the same ethernet cable when testing connected directly to the HUB?

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person

    Have you reset the PLA’s since you changed? If you have a switch handy, test the PLA by putting the switch between the Hub and the PLA. Just in case the Hub is not negotiating the NIC speed correctly? 

  • legacy1's avatar
    legacy1
    Alessandro Volta

    Due to how much bandwidth the hub can bond out the 1Gb port vs a slower output back to back packets output with VM this causes the Powerline adaptor to be overwhelmed causing TCP to slow and speed up within 1000ms vs a slower input steady speed to the Powerline for more speed within 1000ms.

    The problem is the Powerline buffer being too small but no one want to increase this in their products    

  • if the Powerline is the issue, how come it worked fine with the BT router? Better than fine. 100% stable, wifi speeds through the powerline >200Mbs

    And yes, Powerline has been completely reset.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta

    Note : We still do not know the speed of the previous BT Internet connection.

    Do you have a laptop that can be plugged into the VM Hub to run
    a direct connected speed test over a network cable ?

    This is a handy link to diagnose where speed is being lost :
    https://www.samknows.com/realspeed/

    Once the test begins click on: Run full test to see all the stats.
    The speed at the Hub should reflect your subscription.
    The speed at the device can vary.

    • SimZZZ's avatar
      SimZZZ
      Joining in

      Yes, I've plugged a laptop into the router and I get internet speeds of 250Mps+ (as it should be). I have also tested the Powerline speeds buy talking to a NAS drive at the other end of it, and I get speeds ranging from 280Mbs to 866Mbs. But my internet speed through Powerline is still rooted at around 50Mbs. So it's something about the way Powerline is talking to the Virgin router that is somehow different to the way my old BT router worked.

      The fact that my sister coincidentally has the exact same setup and the exact same throttling issues suggests it's not any kind of fault. A VM engineer has just been around (even though I told the awful customer service people over and over that an engineer was not necessary) and confirmed that as far as he can see, everything is OK.

      Oh, the BT connection was 150/30Mbs though often came in above that. My Powerline speeds were always identical to my Wifi speeds at router.

      • jbrennand's avatar
        jbrennand
        Very Insightful Person

        One thing worth doing is swapping the ethernet cables between the Hub and the powerlines and to also to any devices.

        I have had a few fail on me over the years, usually one of the eight little wires snaps off or gets loose in the connector - this has the effect of dropping maximum speeds down to <100Mbps (see Tudor's message 7 in the link below).  And then with the usual powerline attenuation you would max out at around the speeds you are getting.

        Replace with Cat6a for maximum shielding from crosstalk and interference

        https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/No-speed-improvement-after-upgrade/td-p/5142638

         

  • legacy1's avatar
    legacy1
    Alessandro Volta

    Oh I'm sure speedtest sites have 10Gb to fully hit VM network down all them VM Docsis 24 I think the hub 3 has channel before going out 1Gb to Powerline that can't send down the home wiring causing the Powerline to drop some packets.

    How can I put this another way... you have two cups each have a hole you pour water to the 1st cup and goes to the 2nd cup to aim is to pour water that the 1st cup don't overfill but that what happens you can pour slower over time or you can pour water fast detect you over done it stop and start. But if the 1st cup was bigger as in a buffer then it be less of the problem by the Powerline.

    • carl_pearce's avatar
      carl_pearce
      Community elder

      legacy1 wrote:

      Oh I'm sure speedtest sites have 10Gb to fully hit VM network down all them VM Docsis 24 I think the hub 3 has channel before going out 1Gb to Powerline that can't send down the home wiring causing the Powerline to drop some packets.

      How can I put this another way... you have two cups each have a hole you pour water to the 1st cup and gose to the 2nd cup to aim is to pour water that the 1st cup don't overfill but that what happens you can pour slower over time or you can pour water fast detect you over done it stop and start. But if the 2nd cup was bigger as in a buffer then it be less of the problem by the Powerline.



      You should work on VM customer service.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta

    Glad you said that, I thought my babelfish was faulty