Powerline Ethernet for Backhaul?

[Southpaw32]

I've got some powerline adapters that I'm not using, but could setup to use for backhaul on my RBK53 setup.

This is my first experience with routers that use a backhaul, so I'm in the "learning" phase.

Is this a good idea?

What sort of speed would the adapters have to get for this to be viable/beneficial? 

[FURRYe38]

PLs can be used. 

Depends on the connection rate supported by the PL will dictate the bandwidth passing thru them and quality of there connections to each other. They have to be on the same power circuit. 

PLs can cause noise on the power lines in the home. 

I prefer ethernet vs PL

[CrimpOn]

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@Southpaw32 wrote:

I've got some powerline adapters that I'm not using, but could setup to use for backhaul on my RBK53 setup.

This is my first experience with routers that use a backhaul, so I'm in the "learning" phase.

Is this a good idea?

What sort of speed would the adapters have to get for this to be viable/beneficial? 

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My experience with Powerline is "mixed."  It has the definite advantage of using existing electrical wiring.  It has the defiinite disadvantage of not being very fast.  A huge percentage of the claimed connection speed is consumed with overhead.  One of my Powerline links reports a "link rate" of 100-200mbs (it varies by the second).  When I ran iPerf3 between two computers over the Powerline link, I averaged 36mps.  That is between 1/3 and 1/6 of the claimed speed!

My Orbi RBR50-RBS50 WiFi link reports a "link rate" of 975mbs.  This is far lower than the "maximum theoretical" rate of 1,333 mb.  WiFi suffers from overhead, but my experience is it is not nearly as much as Powerline.

Since you already have the Powerline adapters, the only cost to performing an experiment is time.  My suggestion is to set up some sort of througput test between satellite and router and then test it (a) over the existing WiFi and (b) over Powerline.

root@RBR50:/# satelliteinfo wifi
{
"mac address" : "A0:04:60:0D:96:FA",
"hop" : "1",
"bridge mac" : "A0:04:60:0D:96:FA",
"backhaul conntype" : "5GHz",
"backhaul rssi" : "-68",
"backhaul macaddress" : "A0:04:60:0D:96:FD",
"backhaul phytxrate" : "975",
"backhaul phyrxrate" : "975",
"backhaul parentmac" : "A0:04:60:1C:02:39"
}

[Southpaw32]

Does having an ethernet backhaul superceed/overrule/disable the wifi backhaul? or do they work together?

Thanks!

[FURRYe38]

It overrides the wireless backhaul connection. They don't work together at the same time. 

[CrimpOn]

When Orbi detects ethernet back haul, it normally switched to it. This is great because a gigabit ethernet loses under 5 percent to overhead. If the "ethernet" is actually a Power line that can achieve only 200mbs of actual throuout, that would be a poor choice.