Powerline’s slow take up in Australia has long been mystifying, given its convenience. For bandwidth-intensive tasks such as streaming video, it’s a good alternative to wireless for anyone who’s hoping to avoid the dreaded cabling issues.
Set up is as simple as plugging the adaptor into the wall and connecting the Ethernet cable to your router, with the same set up for the device you wish to set up on the network. TP-Link’s AV200 series promises 200Mbps speeds up to 300m.
While we weren’t quite able to test that distance, we found that video streaming and online gaming – both via Xbox – worked exceptionally well, whether the powerline adaptors were in the same room or opposite ends of the house in which we tested, with no stuttering or dropouts. We also tested large file transfer with a 1.3GB video file, with the same results.
An excellent and affordable alternative to wireless.
