TalkTalk Launch New Wi-Fi Extender and Gigabit Powerline Device
Residential broadband ISP TalkTalk has launched a new combined WiFi Extender and Powerline adapter device, which is being offered at a discount of £55 to their existing UK subscribers (using the voucher code EXTENDTT18) or £85 as the regular price.
At the time of writing we don’t know the full specification of this adapter (e.g. WiFi spec/speed or Powerline standard) and the product page doesn’t fully answer our question (we’ve been told that it supports the “latest” wireless and powerline technology), although it appears to be a more modern or similar variant of a product that they’ve sold before (example).
Apparently the new adaptor also features a zero touch install process (easy setup and integration with existing Wi-Fi). We have asked for some more details on the specification and hope to report back soon. Admittedly one problem here is that it’s already possible to buy a combined WiFi/Powerline extender via Amazon (examples) and for a lot less than £55 but TalkTalk’s kit may be superior.
NOTE: Powerline adapters are able to turn the electrical cables inside your house into a LAN style wired Ethernet connection, which can also help to spread the WiFi signal and / or deliver a good wired connection. One caveat here is that you usually need two adapters to take full advantage of Powerline side and they must both be on the same circuit (cable) inside your home.
UPDATE 3pm
We found some more details on the order page. Apparently it’s a D-Link based adapter.
Wireless
• Wi-Fi 867 + 300Mbps
• 2 x 2 antenna array
• Dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz
• 802.11a/b/g/n and latest 801.11ac Wi-Fi standardConnections
• Built-in power supply
• Latest powerline AV2 standard (up to 1000Mbps)
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports
• Pass-through power functionality
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Is it close to 1Gb/s? I have a pair of two Netgear 1Gb/s PLC devices, and iperf test gave me about 150Mb/s.
Powerline is a bit like WiFi in the sense that what the headline standard promises is often very different from real-world delivery.
Many things can effect Powerline including: the loop length of the electrical cable, the quality of the electrical cable and also what other electrical items are plugged in around the home.
Note: PLC devices refer to Programmable Logic Controllers and are nothing to do with Powerline adapters.
@JAFS
PLC is Power-Line Communication among a number of other definitions for the acronym.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication
“One caveat here is that you usually need two adapters to take full advantage of Powerline side and they must both be on the same circuit (cable) inside your home.”
I know the devices ‘officially’ say that but in practice modern devices usually have no problem jumping circuits albeit this tends to reduce the range and speed significantly.
You, too, can share the service from the worst major broadband supplier in the country, according to Ofcom, around your home more effectively with these devices!
Ofcom published that TalkTalk had more complaints in the past quarter but this mantle seems to get passed around ISPs. Ignoring the misquote, seems a little off topic tbh. We bought this adapter kit
because we were getting low wifi speeds in the far corner of our house and who doesn’t like new tech! It arrived as promised, plugged it in and now full wifi signal as you’d expect, no messing about. Don’t know if they are better than the cheaper ones but so far so good.
The Gigabit wired connectivity doesn’t matter anyway because the standard Talktalk fibre router doesn’t have them.
Whatever talk talk serve up cannot compensate for their awful service and terrible customer relations.
Agreed as a talktalk customer PROBLEMS ans service
TalkTalk supplied new router but still having issues with speed & range. I bought new extender & there is some improvement. I am getting better connection & speed but sometimes loose connection and dropping speed. I must admit it’s much better than before.
does not surprise me. I have a new router and still problems.. PROBLEMS from day one I signed up to Talk talk. I was with them from the beginning
TalkTalk are a joke!
Bought one of these devices and using an ethernet cable I can get 4-5 mbps (I’m paying for 40!)
Connecting a laptop to the main router I get 27mbps which TalkTalk claim is within their acceptable limits.. imagine going to a garage and paying for 40 litres of petrol only to find you only got 28 litres.. there would be uproar! Yet TalkTalk are getting away with this practice every day!