Rosewill RPLC-200PKIT Powerline Adapter Kit Review

By Hank Tolman

Manufacturer: Rosewill, Inc.
Product Name: RPLC 200P Powerline Adapater Kit
Model Number: RPLC-200PKIT
UPC: 0898745063349
Price As Tested: $54.99 (Newegg / Amazon)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Rosewill.

WiFi is everyone these days; coffee shops, super markets, retail stores. If you are like most people, you also have WiFi at home. I think you would hard pressed to find an ISP that doesn’t provide a wireless router with their services. WiFi is great. Right up until you need it to do something very important and it just doesn’t quite cut it. Well, there is a solution. A device that will turn the power lines already run in your house into veritable network cables, ensuring that you always have a connection when and where you need it. In this article, Benchmark Reviews is testing the Rosewill RPLC-200PKIT Powerline Adapter Kit.

Believe it or not, I live in a home with more than one room. I actually live in a house with more than one floor. My Verizon provided router is upstairs in my office. My HTPC is downstairs in the living room. I also usually use a laptop for working when I’m downstairs. Everything runs great, until it doesn’t. Try explaining to a four year old why Dora the Explorer stops to buffer every few seconds. It isn’t a fun experience. Alternatively, imagine you boss calls and asks you to email him a file while you are enjoying dinner. He needs it immediately. You grab your laptop to send the file and, of course, your WiFi chooses that moment to be finicky.

I’ve been frustrated by WiFi in my own home enough times that I have considered trying to wire the whole house with Cat-5e. That is, however, a costly and time-consuming effort that I don’t really want to try. What it did, though, was get me interested in powerline adapters. I’m sure you heard of them by now. Powerline adapters, at the most basic level, turn the wiring in your home into network cables, with each outlet becoming a potential connection point. I’ve been very impressed with this technology so far, and I’m excited to test out the Rosewill RPLC-200PKIT against the Trendnet powerline adapters I’ve been using so far.

– Outlet Current: 220VAC 16A Maximum, 110VAC 20A Maximum
– Extended Range: Up to 984ft (300m) via power line
– Power Consumption:
– <2.7W Operation
– 1.6W Idle
– 0.34W Standby (enters standby mode after 30 mins without data transmit detected, and automatically back to operation mode when detecting data transmit)
– Extra Outlet with Pass-Through Outlet Design for more convenient use
– Supports IPv6/MLDv2
– Maximum PLC support:
-Capable of extending up to total of 8 Powerline adapters in one environment
– Build-in Fixed Quality of Service (QoS) enhances VoIP, media, and Data streaming quality:
– ToS, Support up to 4-level type QoS, Support up to 8-level VLAN priority field
– IGMP snooping for multicast to multiple unicast mapping
– QoS Priority: (Fixed)
– 1st: Network Management Frames and Voice
– 2nd: HD Video and Music Streaming
– 3rd: Data Streaming
– Buttons:
-Reset: Restore the factory default settings
-Security: Set the network password automatically
– Plug-and-play connection for any Ethernet device (Computers, game consoles, printers)
– Built-in Noise filter to reduce power interference and enhance data transmission quality.
– Easy security setup

The Rosewill RPLC-200PKIT came in a rather soothing light-blue and white box. Inside were two RPLC adapters, two Cat-5e cables, a quick installation guide, and a CD with the Power Packet Utility on it. The Rosewill adapters are quite a bit larger than the Trendnet adapters that I have been using. Most of that bulk, I am sure, is due to the AC pass-through on the Rosewill RPLC adapters.

On the front of the Rosewill RPLCE 200PKit adapters, the AC pass-through is surrounded by a blue circle. Below that, on the bottom right, are three LEDs that somewhat resemble what they stand for. The top LED is, of course, the Power LED. The Power LED can either be solid green or blinking green. Solid green means that the system is on and running normally. Blinking green can mean a few different things; either the adapter is resetting, it is in the process of password synchronization, or it is in power saving mode.

The middle LED is the network LED. This LED can also be solid or blinking green. Solid, of course, means that the ethernet connection has been established. If the network LED is blinking green, it means that data is being transmitted. If there is no network connection, this LED will be off.

The bottom LED is the data LED, which can be either green, orange, or red, depending on the strength of the signal. Green indicates an excellent connection, orange an average connection, and red a poor connection.

The most prominent feature on the front of the Rosewill RPLC 200P adapter is, of course, the pass-through outlet. In case you didn’t see it at first, Rosewill has put a huge blue circle around it. As far as I can tell, the blue circle is just aesthetic. I don’t like it. It doesn’t match my wall paint.

I do, however, like the fact that there is a pass-through outlet on the RPLC 200P for a couple of reasons. First, because of its size, the RPLC 200P actually covers up the ground input of the top outlet on your typical wall plug. That means, without the pass-through, you wouldn’t be able to use a three-pronged plug in that outlet. Of course, the reason that the RPLC 200P is so big in the first place is because of the pass through. Either way, the second reason why I like it is because you actually don’t see it a lot on powerline adapters. I see these adapters as being most used in the living room for the entertainment center, considering that is where I have two. Behind my entertainment center wall outlets are at a premium, taking one (or possibly two) up doesn’t leave me with a lot of options.

The ethernet port is on the underside of the Rosewill RPLC 200P adapter, alongside a reset/security button. I’m not the biggest fan of the ethernet port on the bottom, but it is certainly a better choice than the top for the RPLC 200P. If there is to be any hope of using the second wall plug, a top-protruding ethernet cable would certainly ruin it. What I would like to see is an ethernet port on the side of the adapter. Or even better yet, a rotating plug, thus placing the ethernet port wherever you like. We’ll talk about the reset/security button in the next section.

The back of the Rosewill RPLC 200P adapter houses the three-pronged plug, meaning no flipping it upside down. It is also where you will find the standard compliance labels and information about the input-output levels.

The Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter kit is quite versatile. It should work just fine on nearly any plug in nearly any home. That being said, Rosewill does warn that older homes with outdated electric cabling may not work so well. I don’t know how old is too old, but everything seemed to work just fine in my house, which was built in 1992. Just to check it out, I took the RPLC-200PKIT to a friends house that was built in 1979. Everything still worked great, although he had no idea if the electric wiring had ever been changed in the house. Just make sure you plug in directly to the wall and not through a power strip. The network will still work, you’ll just notice extremely slow speeds.

Let’s go through some of the stats listed by Rosewill for the RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit, since they can be a little bit confusing. First of all, the Rosewill RPLC 200P touts up to 200Mbps powerline speeds and 500Mbps peak PHY rates. The PHY rates indicate the communication between the powerline adapter and the access point, not transfer rates between devices. That is what the 200Mbps indicates.

Interestingly enough, like some entry-level powerline adapters, the Rosewill RPLC 200P, like many powerline adapters, does not have a GbE port, sporting instead only a 10/100Mbps Ethernet port. The 200Mbps is slower than many other powerline adapters, with 500Mbps ratings. Keep in mind, however, that those numbers represent the data transfer rates across the powerlines, not the network. Even many of the 500Mbps adapters only offer up to a theoretical 200Mbps over ethernet. That’s because the ethernet ports are 10/100Mbps. At full duplex, the fastest they could possibly get is 200Mbps. It wouldn’t be that much more expensive to put in a GbE port instead of a 10/100Mbps. In fact, a lot of powerline adapters have done it.

That’s ok, though. A typical WiFi 802.11n router might give you near 100Mbps speeds if you are right next to it, but throughout your house, you’ll probably be lucky to get anything over 30Mbps on the high end. Depending on the humidity, and other factors, you might be looking at 5Mbps or less sometimes. That is the real beauty of powerline adapters.

One of the nicest features of the Rosewill RPLC 200P is the encryption it provides. It uses 128-bit AES encryption. The device name and password for each adapter is located on the back label, but you won’t use those unless you set up the security manually through the included utility. The easiest way to set up an encrypted network connection between two adapters is to use the security/reset button. All you have to do is press the button on one adapter for less than three seconds, then, within 2 minutes, press the security/reset button for less than three seconds on a second adapter connected over the powerlines.

After you push the security/reset buttons, the power LED will blink at one-second intervals on both devices until the connection has been made. To add another device to the network, just repeat the process using one of the two adapters currently on the network to initiate.

The other option is to use the Power Pack Utility included with the Rosewill RPLC 200P Kit. Once installed, the utility gives you various options for using the adapters and configuring the network.

The main page shows the device connected to your system. Click connect or scan to scan your home’s powerlines for any connected devices. This utility will show all connected devices, even if they are not Rosewill devices. The main screen shows off some of the details for each connected device, including the device name, password (if you have enterred it), quality of signal, PHY rate, and MAC Address. You can rename the devices however you like. I used the rooms in which the adapters were located. To begin setting up a secured network, press the enter password button.

At the Set Device Password Screen, simply enter the password as you found it on the device. The instructions are pretty clear.

If the device didn’t show up on the main screen for some reason, you can add it manually using the information located on the adapter.

Once you’ve added all your adapters and input their passwords into the utility, move to the privacy tab. Here you can choose to set up a private network by typing in a name, or you can use the default public network. You can then choose to isolate the device connected to your computer, or add all the devices with a password typed in to the new network. If you want to keep a device off the logical network, simply don’t enter the password in the main tab.

The next tab is the diagnostics tab. It gives you a basic rundown of all of the devices connected to your network and the information associated. Devices that are no longer connected to your network can be deleted so you no longer see the last known information.

The final tab is the about tab. No explanation is really needed here. You can see the version number, release date, and copyright information.

I believe the most common use of powerline adapters will be practical application. For me, that means the ability to get fast enough constant internet speeds to any computer anywhere in my house. I don’t do a lot of streaming and transferring from one system to another, other than pictures maybe. Most of my file transfers happen from the internet. Still, when a 50Mbps internet connection can’t stream Netflix because the WiFi doesn’t support fast enough transfer speeds, something needs to be fixed.

To test the Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit, I used the IXChariot utility and I also performed a 1.2GB single file transfer of a movie file and a 1.4GB folder of pictures. I’m only testing from system to system, because I think that is what matters most. The speeds over the powerlines could by 1Tbps for all I care. If the speeds over ethernet are any slower, it is just going to bottleneck the data anyway.

I’m comparing the Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit to the Trendnet TPL-406E, which I have been using in my house for a few months now. The Trendnet TPL-406E is a 500Mbps kit, but it is around the same price-range as the RPLC 200P.

As expected, the Trendnet 500Mbps kit outperformed the RPLC 200P Kit, but the Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit did perform well enough to suit my needs. The following chart show the average performance of both adapter kits in the various scenarios.

The IXChariot tests put both powerline adapter kits easily ahead of the WiFi.

In the small files transfer test, the WiFi does very well. As long as it is in the same room as the access point.

The WiFi struggles in the large file test as well, further solidifying the superiority of the powerline adapter kits.

I think powerline adapters meet a critical need for anyone who has found that they are reliant on WiFi in their homes. That’s pretty much everyone these days. The WiFi is great for my smartphone and tablet, considering that it is really my only option, but for my HTPC or laptop, I am constantly left wanting for better speeds. Maybe 802.11ac will go a long way towards fixing my WiFi problem. I hope that it will. However, for a fraction of the cost of an 802.11ac router and adapters, I can get quite a few powerline adapters and fix my problem now.

The only problem with powerline adapters is that there are now several dozen different options. They come with plenty of different options and features. To find which one is most worth the money, I’ll just have to test them all. For now, however, I can make some pretty good judgements based on what I’ve seen from the Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit.

Although the Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit didn’t come close to the 200Mbps that it touts, the performance is still very solid. Don’t be fooled by the numbers on the box. 802.11n routers consistently tout 300 to 450Mbps without breaking a sweat, but those numbers just don’t happen. For that reason, the 40 to 50Mbps showing by the RPLC 200P is nearly double what I get out of my wireless n router from one side of my house to the other. Unfortunately, for a little less money, the Trendnet TPL-406E does quite a bit better.

The Rosewill RPLC 200P Kit looks decent enough. I’m not a huge fan of the look, especially the blue circle around the pass-through plug. Of course, there is only so much you can do to snazzy up a plug. In terms of pure appearance, I am a bigger fan of the smaller powerline adapters.

The RPLC 200P is very sturdily constructed. The three-pronged plug design helps the adapter stay firmly attached when plugged into the wall. The Trendnet TPL 406E, on the other hand, only has a two-pronged design. While that allows you plug it in upside down, it also sits much more flimsily in the socket. The casing of the RPLC 200P is solid. The seams are well-fit and there are no apparent weak spots. The RPLC 200P is constructed as well as you should expect and it should hold up under any falls or drops.

What the Rosewill RPLC 200P Kit lacks in umph and appearance, it makes up for in functionality. While the look of a bulky adapter doesn’t suit my fancy, the functionality of having a pass-through plug certainly does. I am a big fan of being able to use the plug as well as the adapter. The RPLC 200P also features 128-bit AES encryption. That isn’t uncommon, but the fact that you can enable a secure network without fussing with the software is actually a big plus to me. That little security/reset button makes a huge difference in functionality.

The Rosewill RPLC 200P Powerline Adapter Kit costs $54.99 (Newegg / Amazon). At that price, the RPLC 200P is somewhere is the middle-range of 2 piece powerline adapter starter kits. That’s not a bad price, but it is more expensive than TPL 406E kit I tested it against. The TPL 406E also performed quite a bit better in the speed tests. It doesn’t have the pass-through plug that the RPLC 200P has, or the security button, though. I think $54.99 is a decent price, but not an outstanding one.

As for powerline adapters in general, I highly recommend getting some if you have multiple computers (laptops, HTPCs, etc.) that you use in different rooms around your house. The Rosewill RPLC-200PKIT is a good kit, works well, and has a lot of features.

+ Pass-Through Plug
+ 128-bit AES Encryption
+ Security button makes secure setup easy
+ Faster than my WiFi in most rooms

– Bulky
– Slower than similarly priced options

• Performance: 8.50
• Appearance: 7.50
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.50
• Value: 7.50

COMMENT QUESTION: What features are most important to you in a powerline adapter?