Rating: 
Summary: OK but...
Review: After considering a number of networking options, I decided to try powerline to connect the network in our basement to the network on our second floor. I read the reviews on Amazon as well as on .........com and ........... There was not much information in the newsgroups which I felt was a little worrisome. Our house is about 3 years old, so the wiring should be sound. Thus far, my experience has been that I get full connection between some outlets, and none between others. There is no obvious reason for this - some plugs next to each other don't work, while others across the house do. Some rooms have lots of things plugged in while others have none. Needless to add, the two outlets I wanted to connect were two of the ones that don't work. Oh well...
Rating: 
Summary: Works in a mixed Mac and PC environment
Review: Although this product requires a PC to set it up, and Linksys doesn't support the Mac, this product is working just fine in a mixed environment. I have the Mac and DSL in my office and my wife has the PC three floors up. It's a much more reliable and secure connection than our WiFI system was. Not difficult to set up, even for someone who is not especially technically oriented.
Rating: 
Summary: It works... sometimes...
Review: As a networking "internals" guy, I was shocked to find that this product is fundamentally broken at the network layer. What people are complaining about here is that the device suddenly stops working and must be unplugged and plugged back in again. This is because the device is trying to be too smart, and is losing track of which power-line modules connect to which computers. Unfortunately, in doing so, it prevents the network-level broadcast facilities from working. The broadcast facility I'm talking about most (ARP, the address resolution protocol) would have automatically corrected the problem if the Linksys box wasn't so broken. In essence, for all you tech guys and gals, is that a learning bridge should never "learn" the broadcast address. If you have only PCs, and you load the Linksys driver, they do some magic to keep the devices from falling over dead... But if you mix in a non-pc (Linux, UNIX, Macintosh) using a hub off the end of your power-line device, you're guaranteed to be frustrated. The symptoms are that some of the network works (whatever was working before the bridge tables got corrupted) and others stop working with no explanation. The box "selectively" forwards traffic, and becomes deaf to other traffic. It's like being at a cocktail party, and having every third person not be able to hear you, and saying "Over here!" (as ARP does) doesn't help either. Ugh. In my experience, this is somewhat typical of Linksys products... If you have a windows PC, you're fine. If you have anything else, they won't talk to you. I switched to the Siemens power-line module, and it has been working just fine for me.
Rating:
Summary: It works... sometimes...
Review: As a networking "internals" guy, I was shocked to find that this product is fundamentally broken at the network layer. What people are complaining about here is that the device suddenly stops working and must be unplugged and plugged back in again. This is because the device is trying to be too smart, and is losing track of which power-line modules connect to which computers. Unfortunately, in doing so, it prevents the network-level broadcast facilities from working. The broadcast facility I'm talking about most (ARP, the address resolution protocol) would have automatically corrected the problem if the Linksys box wasn't so broken. In essence, for all you tech guys and gals, is that a learning bridge should never "learn" the broadcast address. If you have only PCs, and you load the Linksys driver, they do some magic to keep the devices from falling over dead... But if you mix in a non-pc (Linux, UNIX, Macintosh) using a hub off the end of your power-line device, you're guaranteed to be frustrated. The symptoms are that some of the network works (whatever was working before the bridge tables got corrupted) and others stop working with no explanation. The box "selectively" forwards traffic, and becomes deaf to other traffic. It's like being at a cocktail party, and having every third person not be able to hear you, and saying "Over here!" (as ARP does) doesn't help either. Ugh. In my experience, this is somewhat typical of Linksys products... If you have a windows PC, you're fine. If you have anything else, they won't talk to you. I switched to the Siemens power-line module, and it has been working just fine for me.
Rating: 
Summary: ONLY WORKS WITH WINDOWS 98 2nd EDITION!
Review: Could not get drivers to load from CD or from Linksys website download to work with Windows 98 (1st Edition). Linksys info does not specify that. Had I known that before purchase, probably would have bought another brand (although I have had no problems with Linksys router.) When I finally got to talk to a "senior technical person"; even with newest driver download and beta patch could still not get to work with Windows 98. Had to buy W98 SE CD-ROM from ebay. Now, the powerline network works fine. The least that Linksys owes us is an update as to the real operating system requirements for this hardware!
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT
Review: Had the product for 1 year including the USB adaptors and it was fine. Then the bridge just quits 2 days ago ...only 5 mths after the warranty expires and Linksys will do nothing to help replace the product. This makes my entire $400 investment in the network wortless. I like the powerline for its security but go with another company that takes more pride in its products and shows more concern for its customers.
Rating:
Summary: Answer to 1st reviewer, An Electronics Fan
Review: Hello. I think you are missing the idea behind the bridge. All the bridge does is send a signal using the house wiring. You need a USB Powerline adapter at the other end to plug into the wall socket and the other connector is the USB cable female that plugs into your PC. This essentially is a hard wired system and does not radiate anything. All it does is replace Cat 5 cable with house wiring (Romex) There is nothing wireless about it. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: It worked exactly as advertised
Review: I am a power user, so my experience may be different. I have an ATTBI cable modem in the livingroom, next to tv. It is too messy to run long cat5 cable from there to other parts of the house. I already have 802.11b wireless setup, but: 1. I want something faster, 802.11b is rated at 11mb, in reality, you get roughly half of that, less if you have more than one wireless clients (which I do, 3 laptops, 3 desktops).
This product claimed 14mb, which I should be able to get most of the rated speed as I am not planning on sharing with any other device. 2. 802.11b is not secure enough for this particular connection. WEP128 is too easy to crack, I've done it myself war driving in my neighborhood. I want to connect my cable modem to my gateway/server. Given the requirements, I've done a lot of searching and decided that the PLEB is the best fit. I ordered it and got it within a week. Quick glance through the docs, installed the setup sw on my laptop (had to boot into w2k, as I usually run linux). Config both units, tested them out. Worked perfectly. I did run into a few minor problems that was mentioned by others. The units have to be plugged directly into wall plug. Even just plugging into simple 3 to 1 adapter won't work. Glad I had the electricians added a lot of additional wall plugs when I remodeled the family room. I put one PLEB in the family room where the cable modem is, the other in the laundry room in the back of the house. Moved my server back there, plug it in... and everything worked great. The speed is faster than I was getting with the 802.11b (I am using Cisco Aironet 352 AP and 350 PCM and PCI cards for laptop/desktop respectively. Overall, I am very happy with this. Wish it was faster than 14mb, but that's just because I use that server as a fileserver. I am thinking of buying several more, one for each bedroom as it's more secure than wlan and faster to boot.
Rating:
Summary: Foolproof and noise free
Review: I am using these in my home to share a broadband internet connection. They (you need at least 2) are easy to install and are not influenced by any other electronic devices in the house (I also have some X10 controlled devices). They even work across legs of the house power, which the X10 will not do. I have tested the speed, and they are as fast as being connected directly to the cable modem. The data is encrypted for privacy. I'd recommend these to anyone desiring to set up a home network who do not want to run cables or depend on the vagueries of wireless. You can connect up to 16 of them.
Rating: 
Summary: Ver. 2 is improved
Review: I bought 2 of these, in Version 1. After 12 months, one device has ceased to receive ethernet packets consistently. I bought a Ver. 2 device, plugs into the wall socket (no cord). It has improved software, which indicates both other devices, AND the transmit rates between the current device and each of the other devices. Much more informative: I found that one location in the basement received only at 0.90 Mbs, instead of 2.5 to 10.0 Mbs.
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