INTRODUCTION

   Much like the never ending Intel VS AMD and NVIDIA VS ATI/AMD disagreements there's no visible end to the wired/wireless discussions that emerge all the time both online and live. As for me well most of you know by now that i always prefer wired connectivity when possible so i hardly ever use WiFi while at home or at the office (not if i can help it anyways) so i do everything either via regular cables (which i make sure are not easily seen) or by using powerline adapters. Using cables however (especially in plain sight) is not for everyone and certainly not for most houses so the obvious and lowest-cost course of action for casual users is to use WiFi. Still Powerline adapters are gaining momentum since people are beginning to realize that WiFi although very practical while on the go or away from home is not the best and only solution out there for a variety of reasons. AVM may not be one of the most recognized names in the industry but their FRITZ! line of network products is and today with us we have the latest FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set.

   AVM offers a wide range of products for high-speed broadband connectivity and smart home networking. With the FRITZ! product family, AVM is a leading manufacturer of broadband devices for ADSL, cable, and LTE as well as Smart Home products for wireless LAN, DECT, and Powerline in Germany and Europe. The FRITZ!Box is the best known brand for wireless routers in Germany. In 2014 the communications specialist had 500 employees and generated a turnover of 340 million euros. Founded in Berlin in 1986, from the outset the company has focused on developing its own secure, innovative products for broadband connections. FRITZ! stands for fast Internet, the networked home and convenient telephony. Millions of satisfied customers and hundreds of award-winning products confirm AVM’s commitment to high-quality FRITZ! products and first-class customer service.

   Even without testing the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set we know that it's one of the fastest powerline adapter models in the market currently simply because it supports the latest 1Gbe standard for such devices (to be precise this model supports speeds up to 1200Mbit/s) which is over twice as fast as the previous generation 500Mbit/s models (twice as the 600Mbit/s ones). The FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set also features AES-128bit link encryption and key management (ensures that no one can access your data), MiMo technology, IPv6 support, QoS (Quality Of Service), low-energy consumption (1W idle and up to 3W load) and it also fully supports previous generation Powerline adapters (100/500/200Mbit/s). Granted such solutions still can't compete with a regular wired connection but for houses and offices without preinstalled CAT Ethernet cables these new faster and more feature-rich models should offer a good alternative.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The box inside which AVM ships the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set is very small and just has a product image at the front and the main product features.

A topology drawing showcasing how you can use the adapters is placed on the left side of the box.

A detailed features list is placed on the right side.

The same list is also printed at the rear right next a product picture.

Both adapters are placed inside a formed piece of cardboard.

The box contains the two powerline adapters, two Ethernet cables and the user guide.

THE FRITZ!POWERLINE 1000E SET

The adapters of the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set are made out of hard plastic and unfortunately don't feature a built-in power socket.

They are not the smallest around and so they measure 114mm in length, 67mm in width and 27mm in thickness (weigh 130g each).

At the front we see the Power and LAN LEDs and the security button/LED.

Both adapters have just a single RJ45 Ethernet port at the base (i hope AVM adds more in future models).

The encryption key, serial number MAC address, electrical requirements, certification logos and a 2D barcode are placed at a large sticker on the interior of the adapters.

USING THE FRITZ!POWERLINE 1000E SET

If you want more control over the adapters you will need to download the latest version of the available control software from the official support page as seen above.

Once you do and install the program you will be able to see the available adapters (the ones plugged in the walls of the building you're in).

You can also check the current speed levels and whether or not AVM has released a new firmware version for the adapters.

The firmware update procedure is very fast but you may have to run it twice since the first time we received an error message on both adapters. AVM also requires that the adapter is plugged directly into your computer or router to be able to update its firmware something which i hope they resolve in future products since it does require more time this way.

If you don't need the full "power" of these adapters you can always switch to green mode and use them as 100Mbit/s ones (i really doubt however that people would get these if they didn't plan on using the extra performance).

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 D6300 Gigabit modem/router (we changed from the DGN3500 since after 20 tests we saw no difference in performance with the D6300 between the powerline adapters we have here) and the primary and secondary systems (30m in total between both systems). For Wi-Fi capable powerline adapters we left the secondary adapter at the same spot as with the other tests and used it with an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac compatible Toshiba Qosmio Laptop placed roughly 5 meters away.

   The network data transfer test was set to duration of 40 seconds and was repeated a total of 7 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 7 times at throughput mode with a data size of 1000Kb and in the end the average numbers once again get recorded into our charts. As of February 2015 we also record ATTO results in our charts (256MB total length) after 7 repeats.

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   We've been testing Powerline adapters for many years now but the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set is actually the first to reach our lab with support for 1Gbe so naturally we were very interested to see how it would compare against "slower" models and as you can all tell it ended up doing extremely well. Of course as we've mentioned several times in the past Powerline adapters depend a lot on the state of the electrical wiring you have in your house or office and ours happens to be quite old (26 years if i recall correctly) so although the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set offered almost twice as much performance compared to even the best models in our chart chances are that the difference will be even greater if you use it with brand new wirings (in a relatively new house/office). Unfortunately as already mentioned in the review this set doesn't feature a built-in power socket so you need to forget the one you plug the adapters into but we do hope AVM produces one such set soon.

   AVM is based in Germany and like many other EU based brands their products are designed for local use thus we were unable to find the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set inside the USA, at least not currently. Inside the EU however a pleasant surprise awaited us since as we speak this set retails for just 84.99Euros (Amazon.de) a price which in many cases is less than what many 500/600Mbit/s sets retail for. Of course the reason we didn't expect this is not just that the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set is the fastest one in our charts (at least to date) but because AVM is considered to be one of the best companies in the networking segment of the market (inside the EU that is) so their products are sometimes priced well above those by most of their competitors. In any case with the FRITZ!Powerline 1000E Set you're getting a state of the art device capable of surpassing every 500/600Mbit/s set in the market and certainly even some similar 1Gbe compatible ones and since it carries a very affordable price tag we really have very little reason to deny it our Platinum Award and so we will not.

PROS

- Excellent Build Quality
- Fastest Powerline Adapter To Date (In Our Charts)
- 1200Mbit/s
- Low Power Consumption
- Green Operation Supported
- MIMO Technology
- AES 128Bit Encryption
- QoS Support
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Single LAN Port (For Some)
- No Power Outlet