Brilliant!! Brilliant!! Brilliant!!

Not everyone is into configuring wireless networks and they often disappoint with their speed. This kit will extend your network to the farthest reach of your house using the electrical mains. This is the premium and notionally rated as 200Mbs units. This kit is perfect to start as you require a minimum of 2 units to extend the network and you get a great price on the bundle. These are capable of streaming High Defenition TV around the house.

---

Product Description

Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter Kit

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31273 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: NetGear
• Model: HDXB101-100UKS
• Released on: 2006-09-08
• Platform: Windows
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, 1.68 pounds

Features

• Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter Kit

Manufacturer's Description
NETGEAR's Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter for high quality video and gaming is an ideal solution for connecting a PC, DVR, X-Box 360, PS3, or other game console to the home network. Simply plug one HDX101 into an AC outlet near your router and the other HDX101 near the device you wish to network.Built-in Quality of Service (QoS) ensures high quality, consistent performance for things like real-time HD video and audio streaming for a digital media adapter (DMA) like the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer (EVA700) or for Internet gaming and VoIP calls. With data rates up to 200 Mbps large file transfers to networked storage devices like NETGEAR's Storage Central (SC101) can be up to 12 times faster than previous Powerline networking products, all with encrypted security.

---

Customer Reviews

Instant transformation
We live in an old house with thick stone walls and - after several frustrating years struggling with moody, inconsistent and sometimes non-existant wireless connectivity - we've just converted to Ethernet via the domestic ring main. Ordered on Thursday, delivered next day, I plugged the boxes into convenient wall sockets and the supplied cables into our PCs and that, as they say, was that - 'problem gone away'. It took longer to read the instructions than do the job! Nothing to configure (unlike wireless), it just worked! Instant, high-speed Internet connectivity anywhere there's a mains power outlet! One of our PCs is six years old, and therefore required an investment of £15 for an ethernet card, yet even that responds brilliantly. Thank you Amazon, please pass on our compliments to Netgear - and to the genius who came up with this concept. Genuinely deserving of a 5-star rating and one of the best buys I've made in years.

Avoid wireless dropouts
I had a complex wireless environment with two xbox 360s used as media extenders in different parts of the house, both also remote from the router... even the media serving PC is remote and all were linked up by 54g wireless. However, serving up streaming media required two wireless hops in order to work and I think that degraded the speed aavailable to me.

Whenever the microwave was switched on, the wireless would drop out or slow to a crawl and I would get "Network Congestion" messages and stuttering frames displayed.

NOT ANY MORE though. I have bought one of these kits from a well known PC store (and paid considerably more than here) to eliminate one of the hops between the media PC and the router and I see a huge improvement in transfer speeds. I am not done yet though as I intend to buy another set when my wife lets me spend some more money again and to have all my fixed devices (TiVo, Xboxes, Router and desktop PCs) all on Powerline based wired network.

Wireless is good, Ethernet is better, but impractical for most of us. Powerline HD is a great and very acceptable alternative, but do not expect the full 200mbs throughput which is marketing hype and includes all sorts of data overheads. However, my own set up shows ~120mbs TX and Rx capability, which is more than enough to support a couple of simultaneous HD streams.

However, a caution... don't go for the slower plugs that are cheaper to buy. 200mbs is the fastest currently available and used a different technology...If you try and set it up cheaper and go for slower plugs now, you will need to throw them away later if you want a faster network. Whilst the slower plugs can co-exist as a seperate network to a 200mbs version, the 85mbs (or slower) will not even talk to the 200mbs version let alone move data.

As an extra tip, you don't need a Powerline for every device, only by location. You can connect it to an inexpensive switch (£10-£15) to serve multiple network ready devices. I am sitting here writing this message in my office with one Powerline bridge behind a 4 port switch supporting a print server, my desktop PC, my work laptop and a personal laptop.

Throw away your wireless!
This product is a gem. I live in a longish terrace house, and I need to connect a router at the front of the house to the family gear upstairs at the back. A simple enough proposition, you'd think. But I've been throwing away buckets of time and money on wireless equipment for the last few years, without finding a decent solution. I've used a standard BT wireless router, then with a repeater in the middle, then upgraded to a suposedly industrial strength 'n' router. It seems that it's impossible to get a decent signal to go the length of a solidly built house, on anything better than an intermittent basis. Plus, the software for most of this wireless kit is totally erratic. The kids would be down every half hour asking me to fix it. And in the time I've been using wireless, another dozen networks have popped up within range, which can't be helping.

So, I finally discovered this Powerline gear. Plugged in a pair of units - didn't even bother with the installation software - and had a fast and reliable connection working in 5 minutes. An 8mbps BT broadband connection is equally fast at both ends, and file transfer goes at about 1.5MB per second. No apparent interference from electrical equipment, even when they were doing rennovations on the house. I did get some interference on the computer speakers, but fixed it by repositioning the plugs. There are no security issues, and the thing is completely idiot proof (that is to say, kid friendly).

And the best part of all - that satisfying clunk as the wireless gear hit the bottom of the bin!