Netgear Powerline 1200 pathetically slow

Scanning through your message for useful information that might tell us what is going on I found this:

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MatthewBertram wrote:

I need it as once again I work in a different room from the router which would require an ethernet cable a few hundred feet and I'm not about to drag ethernet cables all throughout my house.

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This suggests that your property is on the large side.

I have Powerline running about 20 feet from router to a second plug that feeds an Orbi router (in AP) . My Internet service is DSL at ~60 Mbps  and I notice no detectable drop in speed at the AP end. That gives me around the 60 Mbps speeds that I get out of the router.

I also have Powerline plugs for various media devices. Here too, distances are short. 

I would not dream of running Powerline over any great distance. That sort of run implies a complicated electrical circuit with too many opportunities for interference.

I have tested the speeds over longer distances, and on circuits that have fuse boxes and isolators on the way. The speed falls off dramatically,

To see if your mains circuit is the problem, you could try some speed tests with two plugs in the same room. Then play around and see if there is a problem with the mains sockets that are causing you grief.

Like all of these things, the techno.logy might just be too flaky for your circumstances.