Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys HPRO200 HomeLink Phoneline 10M Cable/DSL Router

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I recently purchased the Linksys HPRO200 Phoneline 10M Cable/DSL Router and am very happy with its' performance. Although I did have a little trouble configuring Internet Connection Sharing, the Tech Support at Linksys was able to get me up and running after less than 5 minutes on the phone.

I previously purchased the Linksys HomeLink Phoneline 10M Network Card Kit from .... I have a Windows 2000 system networked pier to pier with a Windows ME system. Although I was able to share files between both computers, I was not able to share my Broadband Cable Internet connection.

With the Linksys Phoneline Cable/DSL Router I am now able to share my Internet Connection between both computers and I don't have to leave a "host" computer constantly running, as you would if using Internet Connections Sharing via a proxy server software program(or Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing).

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who is interested in sharing their Broadband Internet Connection between two, or more, computers. You won't have to pay for additional IP addresses, as most Cable providers suggest in order to share your connection. You will also benefit from the Router's built-in NAT Firewall.

This was the cheapest place I could find for the router. All in all, it works great! Just hook up the cable modem to the WAN port, and then the phoneline from the router to the wall. Have all the other computers connect to a phoneline in different places, and all can go online. Others have said they had trouble getting Win2K to get up and on the network, but I did not have a prob (since I am pretty computer savvy). On top of that, the built in bridge works great to connect via LAN using a regular Cat5 cable.

The reason for 4 stars is that I can notice the drop in speed of the internet after hooking up this router. It's still faster than dial up, but not as fast as having the computer hooked up directly to the cable modem. Linksys website says that the newest firmware will not fix this problem, so I have not tried to upgrade the firmware.

This router is great if you don't like to run Ethernet cables around the house, which can get fairly expensive. I plan on keeping the router since I do not have the time to run cables all around the house.

***UPDATE*** I just downloaded the flash upgrade for this router, and did the CNET internet speed test...(drumroll please)....The internet speed picked up and is almost just as fast as the cable modem itself! The flash was easy to upgrade, just download the file, unzip it, and view the readme file. Simple! You can even flash it while you are online! works great now! Enjoy the router! I still highly recommend it!

I have a Win2K pc connected to the LAN (ethernet) port and two PC's (One WinXP and one Win98) on a phoneline network connected to the HPNA port. On the WinXP machine I have a Netgear USB phoneline adapter (HPNA 2.0) and on the Win98 machine, I have a Intel Anypoint phoneline parallel port adapter (HPNA 1.0).

I am using this router to share a DSL connection and to bridge the Win2K PC with the phoneline network. I must say it is doing its job. I reduced one star in my rating because I ran into problems that I wasn't warned of. The internet connection sharing worked like a charm, but I couldn't make the Win2K machine visible from the phoneline network and vice versa. Also, I have a web server running on the Win2K machine which couldn't be accessed from outside (even though I had set up the forwarding correctly). Anyway, after a lot of research that yielded no results and an email to Linksys support which hasn't been replied yet after 3 weeks, I downloaded the latest firmware from Linksys which made everything work.

The installation of firmware wasn't without problems either. The first 5 times I tried to install it, I kept getting some error message and I was almost certain I [messed] up the device. The 6th time, it installed correctly.

Anyway, the thing has been working fine for 2 weeks now, hopefully, it will continue to work until the wireless routers get cheaper and better. I believe that wireless is the future.

Another issue that I have with this router is occasional freezing needing a resetting. It happens very rarely, but not sure why it occurs. I have left it on for days, but it doesn't seem to freeze because of long usage. Everytime it froze, it did it when I was browsing lightly.

Prior to purchasing this I was running an HPNA network comprised of 3 PCs. 2 with win2k and diamond HPNA cards, one with win 98 and a Netgear HPNA card. Life was good. Except

The PC connected to the cable modem had to be on to serve as a router using ICS so the other 2 PCs had access to the internet. Mildly annoying.

Then the office let us connect via the internet using cisco VPN software. ICS and VPN dont talk to each other. Had to disable ICS (many clicks) to get VPN going. Kids would complain they couldnt access the internet. More annoying.

Installed the Lynksys HPRO200 and everything booted up fine. No Muss NO Fuss. Everything talked to each other and the internet (if yours dont, its a configuration problem with your PCs not the router). Installed the firmware update (easy peasy). Dismal bandwidth. Used to get a sparkling 1.5 MBS on the PC hooked directly to the cable modem and 0.9 MBS on the others through the HPNA. With Lynksys the rates were about 30% of those. No good. Even my 6 year old complained Dad, you know nothing about computers; this is really slow. Cheeky twerp. When I was his age we had 1400baud modems. And we were glad to have them.

Luckily Amazon has a great returns process.

Got the 2nd Lynksys HPRO200. Hooked it up. Downloaded the firmware. Bandwidth is good, not great (thats why they only get 4 stars). Im able to get 1.2MBS on the PC hooked up to its Ethernet port, and 0.9MBS on the other PCs through the phone lines.

Its still better than snaking cables and a lot less than wireless.

P.S. Be sure to use a surge protector on your phone lines when using them to network. Your phone line is the easiest path for power surges to fry your PC (or at least the card its connected to).

Product is an all-in-one product-router/firewall (to share a broadband internet connection) and phoneline bridge (to enable networking/internet access over unused frequencies of a household phoneline, using the HPNA 2.0 standard). Also allows ethernet-connected and phoneline-connected PCs to be networked together, all in one product for under $150. And it works great, but I needed three calls to technical support to get my product working properly-not because of bad direction (the Linksys technical support people were uniformly excellent and well-trained), but because the product doesn't come with installation software. It relies on a web-based configuration utility that I could not begin to handle on my own without being walked through it by the technical support people. (And although I'm not a techie, I consider myself above-average computer-literate).

First thing I tried to do was connect my router between my cable modem to my ethernet computer, per the booklet and instruction CD. I couldn't get the internet anymore until my first technical support call. Then I connected two upstairs computers to my phoneline using Netgear connectors (and the Netgear items came with software which automatically installed them correctly, so the two upstairs computers were able to connect to each other via the phoneline network created by the router. I was very satisfied with my decision to use the Netgear USB and PCI phoneline connectors). But only one of these two upstairs computers could get on the internet, and neither one could see the ethernet-connected computer. A second call to technical support revealed that the router had automatically assigned the two phoneline computers the same internal internet address, which technical support expertly fixed. They told me that although they could assist me setting up the internet, they weren't permitted to instruct me how to set up my internal network, but they gave me enough hints (set file and printer-sharing in Windows 98, use Netbeaui protocol) that I was able to figure that out. But then I lost the third computer again and had to call technical support again to fix it. (They had me do things like erase all my internet cookies, manually set my DNS configuration and gateways, things I would never be able to figure out from the documentation. And when the configuration is wrong, the setup utility tends to be unavailable).

Well, I'm happy with the results, but I would have preferred the setup to be more automatic. And I would think they could supply the extra ethernet cable needed for the setup.

Let me first begin by telling you I started knowing next to nothing when it comes to networking. Installing the router and creating a network in my home was quite easy. I bought this product to be able to share a cable modem connection with several computers in my home. It does this very very well and it is quite easy to link the varios hard drives between computers. However, I have one MAJOR fear with recommending this product. If you follow the directions while installing the router and phonelink cards in your computer and it does not work, do not hesitate to call Linksys for help. Out of the 3 network cards I bought one was defective (the HPNA port did not work) and I am now on my 3rd router. I was told by Linksys customer service that routers get "fried" quite often. The quality control for the products does not seem to be up to par. The good news is if you get a well made router the shared computers have just as fast internet service as you had when one computer was linked directly to the cable modem.

I started having some serious problems with my existing expensive SOHO HPNA/Ethernet/USB bridge/DSL router. Their tech support was mystified but basically, it required rebooting daily after a year and still limped along resolving DNS addresses and was "out of warranty." My home network is primarily home phone line 10 mbs and I needed to get a replacement so that I didn't have to purchase all new adapters and reconfigure everything. The HPRO200 is a silent gem. It works right out of the box with no configuration on my part. It just replaced my old router and could be tucked away because it was stackable. My old one wasn't stackable and required extensive setup via software. If you don't have the software, you have this nice art deco thing with 3 spaceage chevron-shaped lights that do nothing but blink at you. Don't put it in the bedroom, it will freak you out when you see it in the dark. The HPRO200 brought my Home Phoneline network back online and worked with all my HPNA 2.0 devices without a tweak to any of the PC's. It also shared internet perfectly. For some of you that have IPSEC issues, this supports IPSEC passthru but if you have a PC VPN client, you don't even have to enable it on the router. You can configure it to be extremely invisible from hackers on the Internet with it's web-based setup program but for most, they will be happy because it worked right after I plugged in all the cables. It was a refreshingly easy to install.

I bought this product about a year ago because of its router and bridge function, and presumably Linksys reputation. I wanted to network my two kids' computers at the other end of the house through the phoneline. I have the Netgear PA-301 card (a great product) in their computers. Installation of the HPRO200 was easy, but performance poor. My connection speed (both ethernet and phoneline) dropped sharply and became slightly better than my old 56k. Linksys tech support which was very marginal, (took several phone calls and a run around between markedly different 2 cents opinions), finally after reaching someone who knew, advised me to upgrade the firmware. That part actually was easy and improved the speed some, but still slow. Linksys finally admitted this was a known issue with this product and were "working" on newer upgrades "at some point in the near future". Fortunately, I was still within my 30 days, and returned it for a refund. Instead I got a separate router (D-link DI704) & phoneline bridge (Netgear PE102), both of which work great. Maybe you will have better luck than me, but I cannot recommend this Linksys product.

I could not rewire my house. There was too much distance and too many obstructions for wireless - and I was concerned about security. I installed the Linksys phoneline router and USB phoneline adapters. Everthing installed easily. Works great. And has been working great for about a year. Slower than Ethernet (I can tell when I transfer files between PCs) - but faster than my DSL connection - which is all that matters. Anyone who wants a no new wires installation should consider this approach.

I used to think Linksys was the name to use for solid networking products. This product has changed my mind. I bought an HPRO200 when it was first introduced and it took me only a few minutes to get multiple computers up and running on a peer-to-peer network with a mixture of ethernet and hpna, all using a cable modem and sharing files. All was well for about 8 months. That is when it locked up and died. Linksys support told me to purchase a new one and they would send me a new, sealed unit that I could take back for a refund. What I got was a reconditioned unit and power supply in an unlabeled box. No refunds for me! Fine... I got over it and loaned the reconditioned one to a friend. Yesterday, 7 months after buying it, the new one locked up just like the first one. There is no way I could possibly recommend that anyone buy the HPRO200. And, with the way I was treated by the support team I can't recommend the Linksys label, either.