Good alternative to wireless
Written: Aug 07 '09 (Updated Aug 11 '09)
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Pros: Dead simple to use, works in most locations, choice of wall plug or power cord
Cons: Variable speed, typically much slower than spec, may not work in all cases
The Bottom Line: Good alternative to WiFi or long cables for home networking, but the real throughput is much lower than the rated speed would lead you to expect.
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| Ames100's Full Review: Belkin F5D4071 Powerline Turbo Network Adapter |
The Belkin F5D4071 is a powerline Ethernet adapter, designed to transmit data at Ethernet speeds over home power lines between two or more compatible adapters. It's an alternative to wiring your home with Ethernet cables, or using WiFi in areas with a weak signal or too much interference for a reliable wireless connection. Each adapter has an Ethernet port for local connection to a computer or another Ethernet-enabled device, and plugs into a standard wall socket to connect to your home wiring.
There are three basic speeds available with different models of powerline Ethernet adapters: 14 Mbps (the original HomePlug 1.0 standard), 85 Mbps (the proprietary Turbo mode supported by the Intellon chipset: http://www.intellon.com/products/homeplug_turbo/), and 200 Mbps (the latest HomePlug AV standard). These are nominal maximum speeds - your mileage may vary. Obviously this Belkin "85 Mbps Turbo" model is based on the Intellon chipset. It should be backward-compatible with adapters of other brands using the HomePlug 1.0 standard.
You need at least two compatible adapters to create a link, so they are often sold in "starter" kits of two. I bought a Belkin kit with two adapters. This Belkin model is pretty similar to other powerline Ethernet adapters except that it offers a choice of a snap-on power plug or a longer power cord. That gives you a choice of plugging it directly into the wall socket or using the longer power cord in areas where plug space is a little tight. The boxes are not so small (3 x 4 inches), so the power cord is a welcome accessory. They use a standard computer power cord with a two-prong socket on the adapter, so you could substitute other longer or shorter power cords if you wanted. The kit came with both types of power plug for each adapter, a short Ethernet cable for each adapter, a CDROM with configuration software and pdf manual, and a brief "Getting Started" leaflet.
Getting started is dead easy. All you do is plug the adapters into the wall sockets at the two locations you want to connect, connect an Ethernet cable from your computer/device to each adapter, and you have an Ethernet connection. No special setup or configuration required. Or at least it should normally be that easy. A blue "Link" LED on the adapter lights up briefly when you first plug it in, then goes out until another adapter is detected on the line. When another adapter is detected, the Link LED lights up, and it blinks when data is being communicated. There's a separate blue Ethernet LED that lights up when the Ethernet port is connected to a computer or other device, and it blinks when data is being transferred on the Ethernet port.
The powerline Ethernet adapters claim range up to 300 meters (1000 feet) through home wiring, but there are several factors that can affect the range and speed. Poor power connections can degrade the signal and reduce speed. Power bars with protection filters can block it entirely. Noisy devices on the power line can interfere with the signal. Most importantly homes with plugs split between two power phases may have problems getting the signal from one phase of wiring to the other. Since most modern houses in North America do have more than one power phase (mine certainly does), this can be a problem. Reports vary on whether the Powerline Ethernet adapters can successfully work between wiring phases, so I was a bit concerned about it when I bought them.
I tested the Belkin adapter at various locations around my house, checking the connection speed/quality from the wall plug nearest my primary computer to the remote wall plug using the supplied software utility, and this is what I found:
- It works in all of the plugs in my house, although speed varies from 25 to 85 Mbps;
- With the two adapters plugged into the same wall socket, I get 85 Mbps speed;
- Some plugs around the house get a connection speed of 75-80 Mbps, not necessarily the ones physically close to the computer room.
- Other plugs are down in the 30-40 Mbps range, including the ones next to the audio-video gear that I will probably use the most.
- Almost every plug in the house fell distinctly into one of those two speed categories, possibly because the plugs are on two power phases?
Turning things around, I kept one adapter plugged in next to my audio-video gear, and moved the other one to various wall jacks around my computer room. Surprisingly this made quite a difference, with the wall jacks in my computer room varying from 25 to 56 Mbps connection speed to the remote adapter.
I'm not really sure why these speed differences exist in my house, even between different wall jacks in the same room. I'm only guessing that plugs wired on different power phases explains part of it. But the speed is quite adequate for my purposes even at the lower rate. I did not notice much effect from plugging other devices into the same socket as the adapter, but the speed did seem slightly worse on plugs which already have a lot of gear plugged into them.
However, the Belkin Powerline adapters did not fare so well in a speed comparison against wireless G at 54 Mbps or wired 100 Mbps ethernet when transferring a large file between computers using TCP/IP. Although the Powerline adapters were supposedly running at about the same speed as the wireless connection, they took twice as long to complete the file transfer, barely achieving 1.5 Mbytes/sec average throughput. That matches the results I've seen reported in reviews of other Powerline adapters. Apparently the lower-than-expected file transfer throughput is because there is a high packet error/repeat rate with the Powerline adapters, which impacts TCP/IP more than streaming protocols such as UDP. When I tried the same file transfer with both Belkin adapters plugged into the same wall jack and achieving a full 85 Mpbs with "Excellent" signal strength, the TCP/IP file transfer took only slightly less time than wireless G at 54 Mpbs (also with Excellent signal strength). They still delivered only a fraction of the speed of 100 Mbps wired eithernet, maybe 15%.
The Belkin adapters have a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port, so the Ethernet port shouldn't be a bottleneck. They do adapt to current powerline conditions, adjusting speed up and down slightly in normal operation. In my tests of data transfer rate I noticed that the throughput might be a bit erratic, bouncing up and down slightly more than with a normal steady Ethernet connection.
These adapters automatically encrypt traffic between them using 56-bit AES encryption. They initially all come with one default key of course, so you need to set it to your own password if you want to be more secure. That can only be done using the Windows utility supplied on CDROM. As a security measure you must enter the unique unit ID from the label on each physical adapter unit before you can set the password for that unit using the software. All units on your home network must use the same password in order to see each other. Once you have set the password, it is permanently remembered, and you don't need to use the Windows software again unless you want to set up a new adapter or change the existing password. You can have more than two compatible powerline Ethernet adapters on your home network, and they can all talk to each other as long as they all have the same password. I didn't find any mention in the Belkin documentation of a limit on how many adapters you can have, or how much extra adapters might affect the speed, but other sources say that you can manage up to about 10 on one home network.
The back of the adapter can get quite warm in operation if you leave it sitting on a flat surface face up (e.g., when using the power cord), but the cooling seems fine as long as there's some air flow around it.
So overall the Belkin adapters work just fine for distributing an internet connection around the house, for providing basic connectivity between computers, or for streaming media at a low-to-medium bitrate (such as music or standard-def video). The typical data rate is nowhere near what you might expect from the "85 Mbps" specification though, so they would not be a good alternative to wired ethernet for applications such as a file server, and they might not be up to streaming high-def video at a high data rate.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 45
Driver Availability: Windows only
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Ames100
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Member: Doug Ames
Location: Texas
Reviews written: 92
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About Me:
An engineer who likes thorough product research and testing
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