Originally Posted By: tonyc

A less invasive option would be to use power line Ethernet adaptors to bridge the gap between floors. I think those top out at around 4mbps (at least they used to), but are probably more stable than wireless (haven't used them myself.)

In theory they top out at 200mbps line speed now. However my experience with them has been mixed.

I swapped from wifi for connecting my servers in the garage to powerline Ethernet over a year ago (as I was frustrated with how unreliable the wifi link was becoming). I started with the 14mbps ones and to start with I was getting near the theoretical max line speed.

Before Christmas I noticed that the line speed I was getting had dropped to under 4mbps. I messed about plugging in different sockets but none of that helped.

So I decided to invest in some 200mbps ones. I started with the Netgear ones. They were awful with my power grid. They were reporting 10mbps line speed, but in reality I was getting less than 2mbps once you took into account the number of lost packets I was getting.

So I tried the Devolo ones. They were a bit better. Out of the box I was getting a reliable 20mbps. With a bit of socket switching I bumped it up to about 30mbps one direction and 60 the other.

I did find two major sources of noise on the power grid, the worst being some wireless light dimmers and the other being one of the servers that I am trying to connect. With the dimmers and the servers disconnected I can manage about 110mbps.

But I can't unplug them permanently so I am stuck at 20mbps.

However they still work more reliably than my wifi at the moment.
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