Using a 10Mbps hub with a 200Mbps powerline adapter

leftisthominid

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I have a router with gigabit ethernet. My cable internet speed maxes around 30 Mbps. I also have a TP-LINK TL-PA2010 200Mbps powerline set. The powerline adapters have a single ethernet port each. I have one powerline connected to my router in my bedroom (where I have multiple network devices connected to my router by wire), the other one is in in my living room (where I also have multiple network devices by wireless).

I was wondering, I have an ancient 10Mbps hub, if I set it up with the powerline adapter in my living room, would I have any problems on my network. I know 10Mbps is enough from streaming video.
 
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I highly doubt that you could bottleneck a 100mbps connection for devices like a network enabled TV, Wii U, and a BD player. They would all have to stream ultra high def uncompressed movies all at the same time from a local source for it to even come close. The only bottleneck would be the WAN (which you said was 30Mbps). It will not affect the speed of the rest of the network since it would be attached to a gigabit switch which has more than enough bandwidth. It's just that a maximum of 100mbps would be shared between those devices... but that would still be a whole lot more than if you hooked them up through a 10mbps hub.

braceyourself07

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It depends on how many devices are connected to the hub. With even a single device, 10mbps is the theoretical maximum (much like you would never actually get true 1024Mb/s on a 1 gigabit connection, because of electrical interference, processing and network overhead, etc...). However, within reason, that setup would work. Now if you have multiple devices attached to the hub, you will likely have a significant decrease in speed because of broadcast traffic. Switches work by isolating an individual circuit momentarily--kind of like a person delivering a note to one particular person in a crowded room. Hubs work by re-broadcasting--kind of like a person shouting the message to everyone in a crowded room hoping that the one person who actually needs the information gets it.

With how cheap 4 or 5 port gigabit switches are these days, wouldn't hurt to order one on Amazon. Or if you have an old router that you're not using that has a built-in 4-port switch (even if it's 10/100) would work nicely, just don't use the WAN port.
 

leftisthominid

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I have old G router sitting around (http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?status=view&prod=180_TEW-432BRP), so instead of using the hub, I would ignore the WAN port and plug the powerline adapter into the 1x port (with the TV, Wii U, and BD player in 2, 3, and 4)?
 

braceyourself07

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Yup, that's exactly how you'd do it.

Since it's an old router, it may be programmed to be the same IP address (usually something like 192.168.0.1 or similar) as your current router... so you may want to plug it in with just one computer and not your LAN, just long enough for you to go to its control panel and set it to another IP so it doesn't conflict. You'll also want to turn DHCP off.

But yeah, treat the 4 ports (other than the WAN port) like a 4-port switch and you are good!
 

braceyourself07

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I highly doubt that you could bottleneck a 100mbps connection for devices like a network enabled TV, Wii U, and a BD player. They would all have to stream ultra high def uncompressed movies all at the same time from a local source for it to even come close. The only bottleneck would be the WAN (which you said was 30Mbps). It will not affect the speed of the rest of the network since it would be attached to a gigabit switch which has more than enough bandwidth. It's just that a maximum of 100mbps would be shared between those devices... but that would still be a whole lot more than if you hooked them up through a 10mbps hub.
 
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leftisthominid

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It took a while for the old router to let me change its IP address, but I finally got it to (I had to change it before I disabled DHCP). I also disabled the wireless, since it is 802.11G and I don't want to use it as a range extender. Once my roommate gives me back the second powerline adapter, I will have a wired living room.
 

leftisthominid

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Quick question, if I were to ever want to use the old router as a range extender, what would I do?
Would I just re-enable wireless and give it an SSID and WPA2 key?
 

braceyourself07

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Technically speaking, a "range extender" takes a wireless signal and re-broadcasts it which only certain routers have the ability to do and some are even dedicated range extenders who do only that. If you are speaking in the more general sense of you simply want to expand the range of your wifi signal, then you probably are thinking of using the wifi router as an "access point" or another point on your network that is broadcasting a wifi signal since you have the luxury of having it hardwired through your powerline network.

Essentially, yes, just re-enable wireless and give it a secured SSID. Without getting into commercial equipment that does zero-handoff (where as your device moves from one part of the structure to another and the signal is automatically 'handed off' from one wifi access point to another), you will probably want to name your SSID of this access point something different than your main wifi SSID and just connect to it if you are in the area or have devices that will be placed in the area (apple tv, for instance). You theoretically could name them the same SSID, but your phone, for example, won't know to connect to the stronger access point until the one its currently connected to has an unusably low signal strength.

Sorry it took a while to get back to your question, been really busy at work and less time to play on the forums!