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.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, great product, works great for most part
Review: I had wanted to do a review on this for some time. For my setup, I needed 2 powerline products. One to hook into the Linksys router downstairs and plug into the wall. The 2nd was plugged into an outlet upstairs to get Internet access to the upstairs computer without running ethernet cables all over.I only received 1 product at first, the 2nd was on back order and didn't show up for a month. When I finally received the second one, I could test them to see if they worked. Initially I could not get them to function at all. I read in the manual, and found out that the products have to be plugged directly into the wall socket, and not through a surge protector like I had them. (It says in the manual plugging it into a surge protector, or power strip greatly diminishes performance). So I plugged it directly into the wall outlet just to test it. This is very inconvenient for users who are low on outlets and need a surge protector or power strip for their computer peripherals. Also there is the issue of lightning with having it plugged directly into the wall. I don't know about you, but here in Florida lightning is rampant in the summer, and I have personally had a cable modem directly hit by lightning with blue-sparks shooting around the room. Put me out of Broadband access for two weeks while I got a replacement. I even had the modem surge protected. However the lightning comes over the cable line itself. Since then I had to get a special surge protector that protects the power aspect, as well as surge protection for the cable line. I don't like the idea of having my powerline bridge plugged directly into the wall because of this. However, the manual claims that the product has it's own surge protection built in, and that it is safe to plug it directly into the wall. How good the built in surge protection is, I yet know not. Once I had it plugged directly into the wall I was able to get the units to function intermittently. I tried using it with my laptop through various outlets throughout the house. I found that it worked with some outlets, and did not work with others. Upstairs where I wanted to use it, the performance was not good. After furthur investigations I unplugged the Linksys Print Server that I also have on the network to share the printer with all the computers. This corrected the problem, and I now had sucessful, high-speed powerline networking throughtout every outlet. Even upstairs where I wanted it to be! This product works just as good as using an Ethernet cable direct. It's perfect for broadband Internet surfing. There are 4 lights on the product (Two for powerline, two for ethernet). One indicates you are connected to the power outlet, the other indicates that data is being transmitted over your powerlines. The 3rd light indicates an ethernet connection to your computer. The 4th light indicates data is being transmitted, over the ethernet end of the device, to the computer. There is also a 5th orange light for collisions. The product is very easy to setup, and very easy to use. Seemless integration, plus it also has password encryption for when the data goes over your powerlines. This is very easy to set up too. I would have given this 5 stars, however the inability for it to co-exist with my Linksys Print Server is the reason for the four star rating. If you are thinking about trying this product but are a little hesitant, I say go for it. It's a very unique product, and a new medium in the field of home networking. I'm satisfied with it so far. (..just have to find a different way now to share my printer with the networked computers)
Rating: 
Summary: No problems, using it as a bridge between two wireless APs
Review: I have not seen this setup mentioned in any reviews, so I thought I mentioned it:
I have a DSL modem in my den, and a wireless 802.11b network there as well. However, since it is a former garage and the house was built in the 30's, the signal does not really penetrate through the wall. So I installed a second wireless access point under my house that "lights" the entire rest of the house. Both access points are connected through two of these powerline bridges -- I did not want to run cat5e between the two and I already had power in both places. It works like a charm, so if you are in a need to connect two routers or wireless access points and do not want to string cat5 cable, use these powerline bridges instead. They work!
Rating: 
Summary: Not reliable for me
Review: I prefer NetGear for a "HomePlug" compliant product. More reliable. Better utility software, let's user see other devices on the network and base speed of connection between "PowerLine" devices. In general I like Linksys products and have used them a lot of them over the last 4-5 years. Friends home's, small offices. Work well. I installed a pair of PLEBR10s and found that only about 30% of the outlet pairs I tested them in would work or even get a connection between the 2 devices. Nothing in the Linksys Software to test speed. Resorted to simple file transfers and a clock. Using this method I found the best pair of outlets to use. I continued testing over a one week period. Test pair would loose connection and need to be unpluged/pluged to restore the connection. Also experienced a lot of speed variation: ok to not useable. Variation could not be attributed to appliances or other devices in use. Just seemed to go from good to bad to no connection. Replaced with the Netgear product and all my troubles disappeared. More pairs of outlets would connect (easy to see with NetGear utility), speed was constant, no lost connections even under harsh condidtions (various appliances running). There is not a lot of information available for users to troubleshoot these devices or the conditions in which they are most likely to operate full. Only thing I found was that the maximum "wire distance" between the 2 outlets should be less that 1,000 feed. No surge protectors in the circuit. Linksys technical support wasn't of much help. It may be that one or both of my units were defective. I will continue to test and continue to talk to Linksys. My out-of-the-box experience was much better with NetGear product. I look forward to their new version (602?) of the device.
Rating:
Summary: Not reliable for me
Review: I prefer NetGear for a "HomePlug" compliant product. More reliable. Better utility software, let's user see other devices on the network and base speed of connection between "PowerLine" devices. In general I like Linksys products and have used them a lot of them over the last 4-5 years. Friends home's, small offices. Work well. I installed a pair of PLEBR10s and found that only about 30% of the outlet pairs I tested them in would work or even get a connection between the 2 devices. Nothing in the Linksys Software to test speed. Resorted to simple file transfers and a clock. Using this method I found the best pair of outlets to use. I continued testing over a one week period. Test pair would loose connection and need to be unpluged/pluged to restore the connection. Also experienced a lot of speed variation: ok to not useable. Variation could not be attributed to appliances or other devices in use. Just seemed to go from good to bad to no connection. Replaced with the Netgear product and all my troubles disappeared. More pairs of outlets would connect (easy to see with NetGear utility), speed was constant, no lost connections even under harsh condidtions (various appliances running). There is not a lot of information available for users to troubleshoot these devices or the conditions in which they are most likely to operate full. Only thing I found was that the maximum "wire distance" between the 2 outlets should be less that 1,000 feed. No surge protectors in the circuit. Linksys technical support wasn't of much help. It may be that one or both of my units were defective. I will continue to test and continue to talk to Linksys. My out-of-the-box experience was much better with NetGear product. I look forward to their new version (602?) of the device.
Rating:
Summary: Not reliable for me
Review: I prefer NetGear for a "HomePlug" compliant product. More reliable. Better utility software, let's user see other devices on the network and base speed of connection between "PowerLine" devices. In general I like Linksys products and have used them a lot of them over the last 4-5 years. Friends home's, small offices. Work well. I installed a pair of PLEBR10s and found that only about 30% of the outlet pairs I tested them in would work or even get a connection between the 2 devices. Nothing in the Linksys Software to test speed. Resorted to simple file transfers and a clock. Using this method I found the best pair of outlets to use. I continued testing over a one week period. Test pair would loose connection and need to be unpluged/pluged to restore the connection. Also experienced a lot of speed variation: ok to not useable. Variation could not be attributed to appliances or other devices in use. Just seemed to go from good to bad to no connection. Replaced with the Netgear product and all my troubles disappeared. More pairs of outlets would connect (easy to see with NetGear utility), speed was constant, no lost connections even under harsh condidtions (various appliances running). There is not a lot of information available for users to troubleshoot these devices or the conditions in which they are most likely to operate full. Only thing I found was that the maximum "wire distance" between the 2 outlets should be less that 1,000 feed. No surge protectors in the circuit. Linksys technical support wasn't of much help. It may be that one or both of my units were defective. I will continue to test and continue to talk to Linksys. My out-of-the-box experience was much better with NetGear product. I look forward to their new version (602?) of the device.
Rating:
Summary: There's a pretty good chance you will get stuck!
Review: I purchased 2 of the plebr10 Etherfast 10/100 power line bridges to solve a specific problem.
So far, they have not done so.
Here is my situation.
I have a Comcast cable modem with a Linksys befsr41 4 port router.
A desktop and 2 laptops are usually connected to it, and everything runs fine.
My workshop is 300 feet away from the house, and I need an internet connection out there bad!
Thouble is, there are no phone or network lines out there, and no practical way to run any now that the concrete work is complete.
However, I did install underground power and put in a 200 amp panel when it was being built.
I had hoped the power line bridges would reach out there, but they do not.
They work fine in most outlets in the house, but not all.
They seem to either work, or NOT- no in between slow performance, etc has been seen. Here is what I am going to try next.
Plug the house plerb10 box into the service outlet on the main power panel in the house and run a cat5 cable from it to a port on the befsr41 router attached to the cable modem.
I think a 50 foot cable will reach.
Then, plug the other plebr10 into the service outlet on the main power panel in the shop. This puts the 2 bridges ~300 feet apart, connected by 500mcm cables (read that LARGE, for household wiring.)
I am wondering if the large surface area of these wires causes the RF to radiate out more that a smaller wire would?
Any thoughts?
If anyone else has any experience with these dogs, please jump in here and share.
Rating:
Summary: Not Like Other Linksys Products
Review: I purchased this and the USB PLUSB10 to set up a home powerline network. Plain and simply, it sucked. Everything else I have is Linksys (router, wireless B and wireless B+G). I had no problem working the listed items together and wanted to add Powerline. The Powerline items couldn't see each other and the setup instructions didn't tell you what components you needed to make the system work. I bought the NetGear Powerline products. They arrived and worked fine with full instructions. I'd go NetGear in this case...
Rating:
Summary: Great product for the purpose it's intend to be used.
Review: I read the reviews of this product prior to me buying it. One or two of them raised some concerns, but I obviously ordered it anyway. My experience... Installed in a snap, just follow the directions (don't use it through a power strip, UPS, etc.) & it only took 60 seconds to get it working. It came with a utility with a few tools. One particular tool that I liked is that it shows signal quality/strength just like a 802.11b connection. The prodcut claims "14mb Max" throughput. According to this tool I'm getting 9.5mb with excellent signal quality (about 80-85%). Overall... The product works excellent for what it was designed for, i.e. low speed LAN connection. It certainly does not have near the performance of a 100mb LAN.
Rating: 
Summary: Does the job, but poorly
Review: It works as advertised but it needs to be reset frequently - unplug, plug in, unplug, plug in, after owning it for a few months (probably when the warenty expires :-) ). Can get to be a major pain.
| 
