NexusLink G.HN Wave 2 kit review: Turn your unused coaxial cable into Ethernet

Most cable and satellite TV services Cord cuts lose customers as people move streaming serviceSo you likely have hundreds of feet of coaxial cable in your home that used to be necessary for your TV and now just collects dust.

It’s this “dark” coax NexusLink G.HN Wave 2 Ethernet over Coax Adapter is a quick and inexpensive way to expand your wired home networking options.

If you live in a house that’s already hardwired for Ethernet, or if you’re spending thousands of dollars adding Ethernet, you probably don’t need this product. If you’re in a tricky situation, these adapters can save you time and money by turning that dark coax into a valuable network asset.

Also: Why is my internet so slow? 11 ways to speed up your connection

This is especially true if you live in a house where some rooms seem to destroy even the strongest Wi-Fi signal.

Configuration

The setup process is very easy. The hardest part is figuring out which coaxial jack in your home is connected to which jack. It would be great if each were labeled. If not, you may need to inspect the crawl space with a flashlight.

Which run you choose depends on what you want to do with the new connection.

For example, if you need a connection from your router in your bedroom to a home theater in your basement, and you already have an in-wall coaxial cable between those locations, place one adapter in your bedroom and the other in your basement.

The Ethernet cable at the end of the basement can connect directly to your home theater PC or streaming device, or connect to an Ethernet switch or secondary Wi-Fi access point for added flexibility.

Instead of proposing thousands of similar scenarios, it’s easy to say that almost anything that can be accomplished by running an ethernet cable can also be easily handled by running a coax cable, as long as one of these adapters is on each end. say. .

If you’re interested in taking advantage of idle coax in your home with this or similar kits, you’ve already got Full instructions on how to do just that.

test

Such a simple setup is a rarity in home networking. However, if the connection provided by the product is not stable or does not conform to the company’s claimed specifications, that’s fine. To validate adapter performance, we approach our adapter testing process as scientifically as possible. I tried

more: 5 Best Internet Speed ​​Tests: Test Your Broadband Connection

Briefly:

• I replaced the 40ft Ethernet cable (Gigabit network switch > Gigabit Ethernet port on my desktop PC) with two adapters connected by a 30ft coaxial cable.
• I ran two tests. One test with the original 40ft ethernet cable and one test with the adapter setup.
• I tested two scenarios. Download/upload speed and latency figures when connecting to the public internet, and transfer speeds for large files sent between his networked PCs.
• For each scenario, we ran 5 speed tests on 3 test sites. Each transfer speed test used four of his files of varying sizes, each transferred five times. Average transfer speed and time are displayed here.

internet speed test

Download (DL) and Upload (UL) numbers are expressed in megabits per second (Mbps) and latency (Lat.) is expressed in milliseconds (ms). Testing was conducted at 100Mbps broadband.

Uninterrupted Ethernet (40 feet)

NexusLink Ethernet over Coax Adapter (30 feet of coax, 12 feet of total Ethernet)

result: Download, upload, and latency results are all within plus or minus a few percent between the two settings. This means that for gaming and online video and audio streaming, the performance of the adapter is functionally identical to similar length runs of Ethernet, which is used instead.

File transfer test over home network

While the above tests showed the adapter to be able to handle more than the 100 Mbps my broadband connection provided, my home network’s theoretical 1 Gigabit (Gbps) speed turned out to be much faster. rice field.

ethernet

File size: Average transfer rate in megabytes per second (MBps) | Total transfer time (minutes and seconds)

• 10.14GB File: 47.5MBps | 3:28
• 1GB file: 46.5MBps | 0:21
• 780MB file: 46.5MBps | 0:17
• 376MB file: 45.5MBps | 0:07

Ethernet over Coax Adapter

• 10.14GB file: 34.5MBps | 4:54 (29% slower)
• 1GB file: 35MBps | 0:29 (28% slower)
• 780MB file: 33.75MBps | 0:23 (26% slower)
• 376MB file: 34.5MBps | 0:10 (30% slower)

As you can see, the adapter maxed out at about 35MBps and the ethernet maxed out near 48MBps. This slowed transfer speeds by an average of about a third when moving large files over a wired network.

Conclusion

As you can see from my testing, at least in this scenario, the adapter seems to max out at about 35MBps (about 280Mbps). That’s more than you can expect from any of his 100Mbps broadband plans, but not as fast as his 300Mbps on many commonly offered home internet plans.

Still, unless you plan to run a lot of devices through these adapters, you’re unlikely to make the most of their transfer speeds. 8K video Streaming is no problem.

It’s only when transferring large files between PCs on my home network that I notice about a 30% slowdown compared to running pure Ethernet. If this happens often, it’s worth taking into consideration.

However, given the difficulty, time, and cost involved in installing Ethernet, the rare slowdown is better than spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to replace existing coaxial cable with Ethernet. seems like a much better trade-off.

Just to clarify, you need existing coax cable to make this a worthwhile option. But if you’re already using one in the convenience of your home, these adapters open up a whole new world of possibilities when you need a stable wired connection that even the best Wi-Fi hardware can’t. Cut open. Offers in every part of every home.

Alternatives to consider

It skips built-in encryption, but the theoretical speed is 1Gbps.

Another option that also skips the extra security, but includes extra coax for connections that require them.

The predecessor of the adapter examined in this review. They offer a very similar feature set, but have a theoretical maximum speed of 1,200Mbps, about 40% slower than the Wave 2 model we reviewed.