Netgear Powerline USB Adapter (XA601)

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: Both my wife and I work from home two days per week, and we both need high speed Internet access to be our most productive. We created a network in a previous house by purchasing a router and running a cable between two office areas. Now we were in a new home and needed to setup our network again, and running a cable would have been a major construction project. What to do?

We immediately thought of a wireless network. But, as we did our research, we saw repeated reports of the network "dropping off" unexpectedly. Neither of us liked the idea of being in the middle of a discussion with a co-worker, boss, or client while looking at information online and having that information disappear. We wanted reliability and simplicty.

The answer? Powerline networking. New technology had overcome some of the earlier electrical interference problems with powerline networking. We already had a Netgear router from our previous home network that had worked flawlessly for several years. So we purchased the Netgear powerline adapter.

The setup couldn't be much easier: connect the adapter to the router with a standard supplied network cable and plug it in; in the second work location plug in a second adapter, and connect it to your second computer, in our case, my work-supplied laptop.

We've been using this product for 18 months without any problems. On rare occasions my laptop won't "find" the connection. If I unplug the adapter for a minute or two and plug it in again, I'm re-connected. My connection has never dropped off once I'm connected.

The powerline solution isn't quite as "elegant" as a wireless network; you do have to be plugged in to a power outlet, so you don't have the same mobility that you get with wireless. But if you're a serious teleworker, you probably have a work space established, and papers spread out around you anyway. You need to be "at work" not roaming around the yard with your laptop. And if your going to be at work for 8 to 10 hours your laptop will also need to be plugged into an outlet.

If you're looking for a reliable, easy to setup home network system, I highly recommend this Netgear product.

Rating:
Summary: Easy, reliable networking for the network novice
Review: Both my wife and I work from home two days per week, and we both need high speed Internet access to be our most productive. We created a network in a previous house by purchasing a router and running a cable between two office areas. Now we were in a new home and needed to setup our network again, and running a cable would have been a major construction project. What to do?

We immediately thought of a wireless network. But, as we did our research, we saw repeated reports of the network "dropping off" unexpectedly. Neither of us liked the idea of being in the middle of a discussion with a co-worker, boss, or client while looking at information online and having that information disappear. We wanted reliability and simplicty.

The answer? Powerline networking. New technology had overcome some of the earlier electrical interference problems with powerline networking. We already had a Netgear router from our previous home network that had worked flawlessly for several years. So we purchased the Netgear powerline adapter.

The setup couldn't be much easier: connect the adapter to the router with a standard supplied network cable and plug it in; in the second work location plug in a second adapter, and connect it to your second computer, in our case, my work-supplied laptop.

We've been using this product for 18 months without any problems. On rare occasions my laptop won't "find" the connection. If I unplug the adapter for a minute or two and plug it in again, I'm re-connected. My connection has never dropped off once I'm connected.

The powerline solution isn't quite as "elegant" as a wireless network; you do have to be plugged in to a power outlet, so you don't have the same mobility that you get with wireless. But if you're a serious teleworker, you probably have a work space established, and papers spread out around you anyway. You need to be "at work" not roaming around the yard with your laptop. And if your going to be at work for 8 to 10 hours your laptop will also need to be plugged into an outlet.

If you're looking for a reliable, easy to setup home network system, I highly recommend this Netgear product.

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: I have been using Netgear Powerline in my house for almost 10 months some of that time with 4 computers. Have "horse hair plaster walls" and many doors. No problem with using the product and not worried about security issues like with wireless