Powerline Communication via smart meter

Hey everyone, trying to find answers on these old forums is becoming a lost cause, so I’m just starting my own thread here.
Just a quick one... I've got a house with two separate apartments, each with its own electric meter. Will Powerline Communication fail if it has to jump across those meters?

Basically, I want to plug the router and a Powerline adapter upstairs, then plug another adapter downstairs into the outlet and run an ethernet cable to my PC.

Thanks! 👍

wiredraven94 said:Hey everyone, trying to find answers on these old forums is becoming a lost cause, so I’m just starting my own thread here.
Just a quick one... I've got a house with two separate apartments, each with its own electric meter. Will Powerline Communication fail if it has to jump across those meters?

Basically, I want to plug the router and a Powerline adapter upstairs, then plug another adapter downstairs into the outlet and run an ethernet cable to my PC.

Thanks! 👍

Hold on a second, did you plug the router in before the meter? Also, what kind of setup are we looking at—is the house on a standard single-phase system or a three-phase one?

And regarding those meters, are they just sub-meters for tenants or are we talking about the main utility meters for the whole building?

Man, I messed up 🙂 ... I think I phrased that weirdly

I’ve got EoP plugged into the router and a power outlet upstairs, but I need some decent internet down in the basement (while I'm hanging out with the guys, since the Wi-Fi is absolute garbage)

The basement is powered through the meter for the apartment directly below mine. So, if EoP doesn't work across different meters, would I have to plug one EoP adapter into the router upstairs and another into an outlet in that downstairs unit—since they share the same electrical circuit as the basement?

Is that how it works? Or am I totally off base? How do I fix this? 😁

First, try testing from upstairs, and if that doesn't work, give it a shot from that apartment right above the basement.
Old-school meters—you know, the ones with the spinning dials? They had this electrical coil inside that basically chokes out the signal because of the inductance. Newer digital meters use a "shunt" instead, which doesn't have nearly as much inductance, so you won't see much signal loss between those two powerline adapters.
The real kicker, though, is making sure everything is running on the same phase (like R, S, or T).
Honestly, the biggest headache nowadays isn't even the meters; it's all the cheap junk with crappy power filters, like TVs, PCs, LED bulbs, or those random phone chargers. They just murder the powerline signal.