INTRODUCTION

   For the past 10 years or so most newly build houses, office buildings and even some apartment complexes are network-ready meaning they have shielded (most of the times anyways) CAT5/6 Ethernet cables installed in the walls coupled with at least one network plug in each room. This is without doubt the ideal solution for people who want and prefer the speeds offered by Ethernet connectivity over WiFi but unfortunately most houses (including my own) are way older than just 10 years. Powerline adapters have been in the market for many years and are pretty much the best choice for use with older buildings since they use the electrical wiring (power lines) to create a local network. Strangely enough however although this technology allows for much greater speeds than typical WiFi connections (especially over long distances) and also provides a much higher level of security not many consumers actually make use of them (on the other hand Office/Business sales are flourishing). Still our job is to thoroughly test the ones available in the market and so todays review is about the latest PlugLink AV 500Mbps Adapter by Asoka, the PL-9670-Q2.

   Founded in 2001 and funded by top-tier investors Venrock Associates and Storm Ventures, Asoka is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has engineering and manufacturing facilities in Zhuhai and Shenzhen, China, and sales and marketing offices in Grenoble, France. Asoka is a pioneer in the development of simple, secure, and reliable powerline communications (PLC) hardware and software and cloud services for Digital Living Made Simple™. Asoka’s PlugLink® and PlugLine® product lines enable service providers to quickly and economically install or extend complete home area networks that distribute high-speed Internet and broadband entertainment services throughout the home, as well as deliver innovative residential energy management and home monitoring services to consumers. Asoka pioneered the baseline platform for PLC solutions and developed the first remotely manageable PLC solution optimized for deployment by carriers and systems integrators. Today, Asoka provides the broadest and most complete portfolio of PLC products and solutions available for a global base of top tier service providers and system integrators, including AT&T, Comcast, Swisscom, Rogers, Motorola, FairPoint, CenturyLink and Clearwire.

   Asoka has a large line of Powerline adapters but the PL9670-Q2 combines three very good features none of the others have together, a very compact size, two RJ-45 Ethernet ports and a bandwidth of up to 500Mbps. The only downside of such a compact size is the lack of a powerplug which means that once you use the adapter on a power socket you can't use it to power another device. That obviously shouldn't really be much of a problem since even really old houses have more than just 2 power sockets in each room but i do realize that some people may not like it in which case there are plenty other models in the Asoka line for them to choose from (reviews pending). Other important features the PL9670-Q2 Pluglink AV 500Mbps powerline adapters carry are the 128-bit AES encryption and power consumption less than 4W while in operation. Compact powerline adapters however usually underperform compared to their larger brothers so without further delay let's continue our review.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Asoka uses a very small box to pack the PL9670-Q2 in that has a product picture at the front along with the Asoka and Homeplug certification logos.

Package contents, a small product image showcasing the activity LEDs and contact information about Asoka are present on the left side.

The specifications list is placed on the right side.

At the rear we see a connectivity layout sketch.

The device is safely packed inside the box with the help of a formed piece of cardboard.

Aside the PL9670-Q2 powerline adapter you are also getting a software mini-CD, Ethernet cable, warranty information paper and a quick installation guide.

THE PLUGLINK PL9670-Q2

The Asoka PL9670-Q2 comes in white and with measurements of just 76mm height, 54mm width and 28mm depth (64mm with the plug) it's amongst the smaller ones we've ever seen.

It's actually just 6mm taller and 4mm wider than the tiny TPL-406E by TRENDnet.

As expected Asoka has printed their logo at the front of the adapter.

A small reset button is placed right beneath the company logo.

4 small activity LEDs are placed at the right side of the adapter (throughput/power/Ethernet link for the 2 ports).

The two RJ-45 Ethernet ports (10/100) are placed at the base.

A small sticker is placed at the rear and has plenty of information on it such as the model name, serial number, barcode, mac address, FCC ID (Federal Communications Commission Identification Number) and its electrical requirements.

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   As already mentioned plenty of times in the past the performance of Powerline adapters is directly linked to the quality of the buildings electrical grid/wiring so the output speeds from such devices will most probably vary between new and old structures. Still the results recorded when testing Powerline adapters inside the same building should easily point out the best one and so to that end we used the well-known Passmark Performance Test to measure the data transfer rate in wired, wireless and Powerline modes with a fixed (for every test) distance of 15 meters between our Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit modem/router and the primary and secondary systems (30m in total between both systems). The network data transfer test was set to duration of 40 seconds and was repeated a total of 5 times after which the average numbers were recorded into our charts. As a secondary test we are also using QCheck by Ixia which is considered amongst the top measuring tools of its kind. Tests are performed 6 times at throuput mode with a data size of 1000Kb and in the end the average numbers once again get recorded into our charts.

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   I didn't actually expect the PL9670-Q2 adapters to perform the way they did mainly because of their very compact size but in the end I’m glad to admit that i was wrong and so we recorded speeds over two times as much as the ones we did with the TPL-406E (the most compact powerline adapter in our charts). Granted some larger models achieve better speeds and also feature a power plug that allows you to power another device but in the end people who are looking for a compact powerline adapter have their reasons and at least so far the Asoka PL9670-Q2 is the best we've ever used especially if you take into account the dual Ethernet port feature. Unfortunately although Asoka bundles their Power Manager software in the mini-CD we were actually unable to use it since it either failed to detect the adapters or it would just stop responding while loading. Hopefully Asoka will release an updated version of their software to resolve such issues (we will keep in touch about that).

   One serious problem currently with Asoka is the availability of their products at regular online stores something which i hope they will resolve soon. For now however you can get their solutions directly from the product page at which the PL9670-Q2 currently retails for USD75 plus shipping. Unfortunately they don't sell them in pairs (for a better price) so two of these fast little adapters will put you back a grand total of well over USD150 and i expect that this will drive away many potential customers. I can't really deny that in terms of performance the PlugLink PL9670-Q2 Powerline Adapter is really good especially for its size and for that we are giving it our Golden Award, however with such a price tag they may be giving up on what could easily become a best seller.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size
- Performance
- 500Mbps
- Dual Ethernet Ports
- Lifetime Warranty

CONS

- Availability
- Price