ISP TalkTalk UK Prep New 500Mbps PowerLine and WiFi Adapters

Budget ISP TalkTalk looks set to begin offering a special branded version of DLink’s latest DHP-W311AV PowerLine adapters to its Plus TV (YouView) based home broadband customers in the not too distant future. The new kit is able to both extend your wifi network and convert a buildings electrical cable into a faster wired network.

At present customers who take the Plus TV package are also offered a choice of two PowerLine kits (they come in pairs), one with a pass-through socket for other plugs (£50) and one without (£35). Customers whom elect to have one of the providers BrightSparks engineers install their TV and broadband service can also ask them to setup the adapters.

Unfortunately TalkTalk’s existing adapters appear to be based off an older and significantly slower variant of the HomePlug standard, while the latest kit supports HomePlug AV for local network speeds of up to 500Mbps (Megabits per second); in reality you should probably expect real-performance of around 40-100Mbps (highly variable). On top of that they can also be used to extend or deliver an N spec wifi wireless network.

The new adapters have been in trial for the past month and TalkTalk claims to have been “delighted with the overall results“.

A Spokesperson for TalkTalk-Labs said:

“The improvements we’ve seen in Wireless speed, range and signal speed has been significant. Also, we’ve seen a noticeable uplift in Powerline wired performance against our current PLA’s.

We’ve fed all the information and suggestions to improve it before we release the product to the Product Management and Marketing teams.”

At present no official launch date has been announced and if history is anything to go by then the new adapters, which separately retail for around £60, will in the not too distant future probably slip almost unnoticed into TalkTalk’s online shop.

The new adapters, which are needed in order to better support the faster connectivity being delivered via TalkTalk’s latest superfast broadband (FTTC) packages (i.e. some home networks are struggling to keep pace), measure 90 x 65 x 50 mm (3.54 x 2.56 x 1.97 inches) in size and when active they will eat just 6 watts of power.