effective thruput of PLA 5456 very low

NellyZ

Hi, 
I purchased a pair of PLA 5456 to overcome issues by a WiFi mesh network in thruput (only 50 Mbps between the routers). Once connected and applied new network name the PLA config tool shows me between 400 and 500 Mbps effective bandwidth, which would be great. Just reality is completely different. Effective thruput is less than 20% of this, i.e. max 70 Mbps. That would be very disappointing as it would mean that the thruput provided by the Zyxel config tool would seem be more programmed by the marketing department if it does not show the reality of my network. 
Can the community confirm if you have similar drop (from 1800 Mbps advertised (ok we can skip this one :-) to 450 Mbps per direction shown in the tool to 70 Mbps effective usable) and I have to consider this works as designed (i.e. have to return as useless for my purposes) or am I missing something? 
Keen to get your input. 
NellyZ

NellyZ

I now got the final answer from Zyxel support which basically says that it is considered normal to only achieve 3% of the advertised theoretical max. even if the config tool shows 20-25%. 
I will now give another brand the chance to show if they can handle better and if not I need to live with the Wifi-Mesh which also provides at least 50-60 Mbps. 

eozrocwd

You may try to connect a PC to the other end of the PLA, and do the speedtest.net on the PC if it can only reach more than 70M?
What is the internet throughput from your Internet provider?

NellyZ

Hi. A similar machine not needing the PLA connection is achieving 300 Mbps even via WiFi Link. So provider and such is not the issue. Also the 450 Mbps mentioned above would be sufficient but I do not get the drop from 450 to 70 at all. 

eozrocwd

As i know, the 450M that you saw on the PLA tool should be the phy rate between the PLA, and it will be much different than the actual throughput. 
How do you check the speed of 70Mbps? on the AP Tool?
What is the color of the PLA homeAV light? and you better make sure you have connected the PLA with the ground wire too, otherwise, it will affect the performance very badly. once, I plug into two-prong power plug, and provide a really bad connection between two PLA.

NellyZ

Hi, 
I did measure with an internet speedtest (the same I used for the 300 Mbps of the Wifi device). I though did confirm by just transmitting a huge file between 2 local computers to eliminate any internet issues. 
The lights are green on both ends (of course flashing green). 
I more and more get the impression that the physical rate is just a made up number by Zyxel to give you a better feeling of the product. If that would be the physical rate I cannot think of any overhead which might be necessary which reduces thruput down to only 20% effectively available. Zyxel support so far was not helpful at all and only tried to explain the drop from 1800 to 400 which I totally get and have no issue with. 
I would still be keen to have real life feedback from other users on their effective thruput vs. was the PLA config tool shows in their environment. 

NellyZ

I now got the final answer from Zyxel support which basically says that it is considered normal to only achieve 3% of the advertised theoretical max. even if the config tool shows 20-25%. 
I will now give another brand the chance to show if they can handle better and if not I need to live with the Wifi-Mesh which also provides at least 50-60 Mbps.