Netgear launches 500Mbit/s powerline networking kit

 

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Posted on 1 Mar 2010 at 15:18

Netgear has announced a new range of super-fast powerline networking adaptors. Capable of data throughput of up to 500Mbit/s, the devices are backwards compatible with older HomePlug AV-certified adaptors.

Two kits have been announced: the Powerline AV 500 Adapter Kit and the Powerline AV+ 500 Adapter Kit - the only difference between the two is that the '+' kit's adaptors have pass-through power sockets. In order to offer the full network speed, the Powerline AV 500 adaptors have integrated Gigabit Ethernet network ports that you can connect to your PC's LAN port using an Ethernet cable.

It's important to note that the headline figure is both a the total shared bandwidth for the entire network and the theoretical maximum speed. This effectively means that the more computers you have running using powerline networking, the slower the network goes, while the quality of your electrical wiring has a big impact on the total network speed. This is different to a physical Gigabit Ethernet network, where each client has a full 1,000Mbit/s network connection in both directions (full duplex).

Testing 200Mbit/s HomePlug adaptors we've seen a maximum throughput of around 63Mbit/s. If the new 500Mbit/s kit was to run at a similar real-speed to maximum-speed ratio, that would mean a speed of at least 157Mbit/s. However, we're hoping for faster.

With 200Mbit/s adaptors, the speed's limited by the 100Mbit/s Ethernet port they use. This effectively means that when you're transferring a large file you can only run the adaptors at 100Mbit/s. With the 500Mbit/s kit, the Gigabit Ethernet port means that you can run an adaptor at its full rated speed. Hopefully, we'll get some adaptors in soon to find out how quick they really are.

Author: David Ludlow