With powerline adaptors are quickly becoming a must have item in a modern network connected home. With the powerline adaptors offering genuine value for money, they easily enable you to provide all areas of your home with network connectivity.
You also no longer need to mess about configuring that old wireless router that is gathering dust in the cupboard to act as a wireless access point. If your room has an electrical outlet then by simply plugging in a Powerline adaptor near your router and the second one in your chosen room you’ll have fast wired or even wireless network access.
Well this new Powerline Adaptor set from TP-LINK should hopefully put those issues to bed. The TL-PA6030KIT has a pair of 600Mbps Powerline Adaptors with three Gigabit Ethernet ports and how much we can squeeze out of these now the Fast Ethernet port restriction has been removed.
The TP-LINK TL-PA6030KIT contains a pair of PA6030 600Mbps Powerline Adaptors together with the usual Ethernet cables, instructions and resource CD. The adaptors are made from the familiar white hard plastic shell that seems to be the norm these days, with air vents on each side. To the bottom is are three Gigabit Ethernet port together with the pairing button.
To the front of each adaptor is a row of three LED lights. The first is the Power LED which illuminates when on or flashes when in power saving mode, then we have the Powerline LED which illuminates when the powerline network is set up and flashes when transferring data and finally the Ethernet LED which illuminates when a device is connected to it and again flashes when transferring data. It’s a simple LED setup but contains everything you really would need on a Powerline Adaptor.
Setup
The setup is as simple and quick as we have become accustomed to. You simply plug the first adaptor in and connect it to your router, plug the second adaptor in and then press the pairing button and within 30 seconds or so the powerline network is fully up and running complete with 128-bit AES security encryption. No messing about with settings, it really is one of the easiest devices to install. The adaptors are fully HomePlug AV compliant so adding additional ones should present no problems.
Utility Software
On the cd that is include in the box is Powerline Utility software, you can set up or configure the devices according to your need. The PowerLine Utility enables you to identify powerline devices on the powerline network, measures data rate performance and ensures privacy by setting user defined secure powerline networks.
Test Results
Before I talk about the results my ISP I get 100 Mbps, all the results are taken in the same place in my house when tested.
Via WiFi
Via TP Link TL-PA6030Kit
As you can see you get amazing speeds via the power adapter.
Conclusion
The adaptors themselves are very small and compact and offer good value for money around £70. You network speed will depends on your cabling in the area that you are using. The results are easily fast enough for streaming HD movies to multiple sources for example.
