Networking Gear by stefan @ 2013-12-19
The TL-WPA4220KIT comes pretty cheap and also provides wireless connectivity for maximizing the wireless range of the current network. Despite the fact that we get an advertised speed of 500Mbps, the LAN ports are capped at 100Mbps. We must also take in account that the speed may vary depending on the quality of the wiring and other factors.
At first I would like to thank TP-LINK for offering me a sample of their 300Mbps AV500 WiFi Powerline Extender Starter Kit for testing and reviewing.
"TP-LINK is a global provider of SOHO networking products and No.1 market share holder in China, with products available in over 100 countries to tens of millions customers. Committed to powerful R&D, effective production and strict quality management, TP-LINK continues to provide awards-winning networking products in Wireless, ADSL, Routers, Switches, IP Cameras, Powerline Adapters, Print Servers, Media Converters and Network Adapters for Global end-users.
Based on the confidence of tens of millions of customers, TP-LINK is now growing to become one of the most competitive providers of networking products with aspirations of becoming one of the top 3 networking brands and striving for a larger global market share, while further advancing in the world of networking to better serve our most valued customers with a product that makes their lives easier."
Wi-Fi Clone Button simplifies your Wi-Fi configuration and helps build a seamless unified home network
HomePlug AV standard providing up to 500Mbps high speed data transmission over a home’s existing electrical wiring, ideal for lag-free HD or 3D video streaming and online gaming
Extend 300Mbps wireless connections to previously hard-to-reach areas of your home and office
Two Ethernet ports allow your TVs, game consoles, or PCs connect to the Internet
Up to 300-meter range over the household power circuit
Easy to install, just plug in and play
128-bit AES encryption easily at a push of "Pair" Button
Supports IGMP managed multicast IP transmission, optimizing IPTV streaming
In this review we will take a look on a product which allows data transmission via the existing electrical circuitry; this kind of technology has been out for quite a while now from various manufacturers and the transfer speed seems to be influenced by the quality of the wiring, but also by the use of power strips in which case the quality would drop a lot. The TL-WPA4220KIT is shipped in quite a small enclosure, which shows the main product highlights on the frontal side of the packaging:
On one of the box sides we can check out the box contents, in multiple languages:
The installation steps are also described on the box:
On the opposite side we will get to see the list of technical specifications:
The back side of the box comes with a short product description, a comparison table between different devices, but also an example network solution:
After the removal of the external packaging layer, we will end up with a plain white box:
The kit TP-LINK has sent us is composed from two separate components, one being the TL-PA4010 and the other TL-WPA4220:
The bottom layer contains the rest of the bundle:
We get two Quick Installation Guides, one for each component, two LAN cables, a Declaration of Conformity leaflet, but also some more product descriptions:
One of the guides describes the functionality and LED behavior of the AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter:
The manufacturer instructs us to insert the adapter directly into the power socket in order to avoid signal attenuation when connected to a power strip with surge protector:
The AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter goes hand-in-hand with the 300Mbps AV500 WiFi Powerline Extender, which also gets a Quick Guide of its own:
Let’s go back to the AV500 Nano Powerline adapter; this product needs to be plugged into a power socket and can establish network infrastructure in just a few moments when connected via the LAN cable to our router:
AV500 Nano Powerline comes with three LEDs: Power, Powerline and Ethernet. The Power LED will light up when the device is connected to the wall socket, Powerline will light up when a network will be established on the electrical wiring and Ethernet will light up when we have the device connected to our router. The Pair button will be pressed for one second in order to perform the actual pairing procedure:
On both sides of the adapter we will find ventilation holes:
Despite the fact that the technology mentions speeds up to 500Mbps, we are limited by the 10/100 Ethernet Port interface:
The back side of the adapter lets us know of its MAC address, the encryption password, but also the product serial number:
Next we have the 300Mbps AV500WiFi Powerline Extender which also features a Wi-Fi Clone button which can automatically copy the SSID and Password of our router and this way simplifies the Wi-Fi configuration while extending the current wireless network:
This device features four LEDs (Power, Powerline, Ethernet but also Wi-Fi/Wi-Fi Clone). The Wi-Fi LED will blink quickly when we have connected to it with a device (laptop, smartphone and so on) and slowly during Wi-Fi Clone operation:
Besides wireless, we can also connect to it via LAN, thanks to the two included 10/100Mbit ports. On the same side we will get to see a Pair button for establishing a Powerline network, but also a Reset button:
The sides of the product have ventilation grills to prevent overheating:
On the back side of the product we will find information regarding the WiFi MAC address, Powerline MAC and password, but also the Wi-Fi network preset password:
The LEDs are not overly bright when the adapter is operating:
After synchronizing the two components together and creating a network, we can go forward to download the utility from the support page in order to access the Web GUI interface of the TL-WPA4220. Speaking of the GUI, it looks about the same as the one we have seen on their routers, with the upper title on a green background, the menu structure on the left, the contents in the middle and help on the right:
We can set a different LAN IP for the device by navigating to the Network section:
Next we can alter the default Wireless Settings, by customizing the SSID name, region, transmission channel, operating mode, but also the channel width:
In order to set up the encryption key, we will go to the Wireless Security page:
We also have available MAC Filtering straight from the device itself:
Some advanced WiFi options can be also altered:
Inside the Wireless Statistics menu, we will be able to see the currently connected devices, along with their MAC, status, but also the number of received and sent packets:
The network can be named inside the Network Settings menu:
The detected TL-PA4010 device will be listed inside the Station Settings section:
A firmware upgrade can be performed from the interface:
We can also perform a reset to factory defaults:
Inside the Backup and Restore menu we will be able to save our current settings to a file and restore when needed:
The device can be rebooted from the next menu:
A new password can be defined from the respective menu:
Finally we have System Log which shows the current status, hardware version, software version, LAN IP and subnet mask:
In order to test out the Powerline network capabilities, we have set up our trusty TP-LINK Archer C7, which was connected via wire to the TL-PA4010. The TL-WPA4220 was set up in the next room and we have connected it first via Wireless to our Dell 7520SE laptop and afterwards on wire in order to find the maximum transfer speeds.
For performing the speed tests, we have used PerformanceTest 8.0.
Thanks to the TL-WPA4220KIT we can take the Powerline technology to the next level by having included WiFi capabilities along with the LAN connection. Despite the fact that we have advertised a 500Mpps high speed data transmission over the existing electrical wiring, we are bottlenecked by the 100Mbps LAN interfaces on both ends. Even if in theory the TP-WPA4220 could deliver over 100Mbps, it is impossible to pass this mark since the TL-PA4010 connects to the router only with a 10/100 LAN interface.
The technology is highly dependent on the quality of the electrical installation in our homes and we have experienced high signal drops (attenuations) when we had connected one or both components to power strips with surge protection. The powerline signal jumps from circuit to circuit, but each time we go across a circuit breaker, we will have roughly 20 dB of attenuation. The ideal usage is when we won’t pass through any circuit breaker and we will connect the equipment only directly to the wall socket; this way we have obtained about 94Mbps, near the transfer limit. With the signal passing through two circuit breakers and when using power strips with protection on both sides, the speed has dropped to about 9-10Mbps and was not too steady since sometimes the synchronization was failing completely. From a specialist we have also learned that powerline technology also suffers when 3-phase wiring is used; this type of wiring was mostly used commercially, but has been also been introduced recently in some homes too.
If we have good electrical wiring, we should expect having a very stable connection, sometimes winning over the regular WiFi extenders with ease.
Thanks to the TP-WPA4220 wireless GUI, we can easily customize the settings regarding both LAN and WiFi and if we had experiences with TP-LINK network equipment before, this should be a breeze to set up.
The TL-WPA4220KIT Starter Kit is available online for about 65 Euros.
We would like to thank again to TP-LINK for making this review possible!