[12irish12]

Hi,
I have recently moved to a new apartment were my router is located far away from my tv and HTPC. I had previously been using a wired connection for my set up but with the router so far away this is not an option at the moment and I have reverted to using wifi. I have a dual band router and the 2.4Ghz network clocks in at around 30mbps while the 5Ghz net work clocks in at 105mbps. My problem is that while the 5Ghz network would be perfect for streaming my HTPC wifi adapter cannot connect to the 5Ghz network. I am trying to decide between the two options below and if anyone has any advice it would be appreciated and also if anyone has a recommendation on hardware it would be great.

Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter: I am looking at a D-Link DHP-701AV but finding it hard to know exactly what type of speed I can expect from this solution.

USB 802.11ac Wifi Dongle: This will allow my HTPC to connect to the faster 5Ghz network in my home but again unsure what loss of speed I can expect compared to a built in wifi adapter I did the speed tests with.

If anyone has any experience or advice with either of these options it would be sound!!

[J876]

I have PowerLine Adaptors for my Ubuntu HTPC

TP-Link TL-PA511 AV500 Gigabit Powerline Adapters (they are older models now).

The theoretical speed is 500Mbps but with the support tool provided by TP-LINK I get about 180-220Mbps on the electric wiring where I live at the moment.

The PowerLine Adaptors, providing your electric wiring is good and you install them as per the instructions, gives much better performance than Wi-Fi with no drop-outs.

This was my experience anyway.

You can try a USB 802.11ac Wifi Dongle but to take full advantage of it you need to get a good quality one and your router needs to be 802.11ac to get the maximum performance. Otherwise,
the best you can hope for is 802.11a/n/g/b speeds with an older dual-band router.

[12irish12]

Thanks J876 for the input it looks like the power-line is the way to go so as I completely forgot about the spec of the router. Ill take a look at the TPlink options to see if there is a newer version of what you suggested (on phone now). 180Mbps is more than enough for my steaming needs though.

Thanks again