Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys PLS300 PowerLine AV 4-Port Network Adapter

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I can't speak to another reviewer's difficulties with the PLS300, and his interaction with Linksys tech support, but I just installed my new PLS300 in a household filled with four Linksys PLE200 units (Powerline AV wall bricks), and everything is working great so far. I previously updated all the units' respective firmware (available on the Linksys product page for each model), and made sure I used Linksys' utility to change the network password on the PLS300 to what I used on all the other modules, and bam- I was online. I have three more PLS300 on the way (looking forward to consolidating separate PLE200s and mini-switches into a single unit), so I'll be sure to update this review or submit a new one if I encounter any problems as I get them all installed and time elapses. My only gripe is the Linksys utility software... not especially intuitive, and sometimes you can't tell if the changes you made were accepted, but this was a minor issue.

Update- 12/28/08- I now have four of these units installed thrughout my house, and haven't had a single problem installing or using them. It's great cleaning up some of the spaghetti cords, and freeing up a power outlet by combining the previous PowerLine AV brick and separate miniswitch into a single unit. Changing the form factor, where a cord gets plugged in, rather than a brick, is great too, so you can hide the unit, and not have the blinking lights distract you from the TV or whatever (I previously put electrical tape over the brick's LEDs). This site won't let me, but I upgrade my rating to 5 stars.

Added this device as a the third powerline unit on my network which is mixed wireless and powerline. Worked easily and flawlessly thus far with my original existing two powerline units, the one connected to the DSL line on the 1st floor and the second 4-port one in the basement that is bringing me Netflix on demand via Blu-Ray player and live news/weather etc through the HDTV. Wanted to keep the Wi-Fi I already had for walking around the house with a laptop or my Ipod Touch but use the powerline for non-Wi-Fi devices without having to add more Wi-Fi receivers and gain what appears to be greater reliability and speed. Not sure why anyone would conclude that you can't add more powerline units to an existing network.

I bought a Linksys PLK300 locally and then bought the PLS300 from Amazon as an extra "brick" in my network. I have five computers in the house, three upstairs and two downstairs. I'd been using a 802.11N wireless system and just having nothing but trouble. The system managed to drop one or more of the computers several times a week, and we'd have to go through a reboot, running up and downstairs to get all the PC's on the same track. The Powerline system fixed all that. It's been in place for about 4 weeks and hasn't dropped a station yet. The data transfer rate is awesome - faster than the N under actual conditions. The 200MB Powerline units are more expensive than the 85MB ones, but worth it. It was even easier to install than I'd expected from reading reviews and product information. The two downstairs computers are wired off one brick, the PLS300 as a matter of fact, and they can both access the Internet simultaneously with no appreciable loss of speed. I'd heard negative stuff in the early days of Powerline - interference, unreliability - but these units work perfectly. They also come with power cords so they don't block the outlet. They are easy to hide and use soft blue indicators, so there are no annoying blinking lights.

My house is about 2 years old and the only cable connection is through the garage (we have dish hd tv). Also the walls are thick so wireless is difficult to get throughout the house w/ 1 router. So our setup is as such: downstairs - cablemodem -> N router -> PLE200 -> upstairs PLE200 -> G router. On top of that, I wanted my gaming pc and my PS3 hard-wired, so I picked up the PLS300 this week.

Note the PLS300 is compatible with the PLE200s because both use the Homeplug AV standard, which is faster than Homeplug 1.0 (av + 1.0 not interoperable without a bridge). The only thing I had to do to get the PLE200s to recognize the PLS300, was to update the firmware to the latest version on both PLE200s. After that, the network light came on and both the PS3 and my PC were connected to the Internet.

Connection speed-wise, the LAN speed is currently 132MBit which is good enough to stream my 720p videos if necessary. I ran a speedtest and our 16mbit cable connection is going full blast with low latency.

Great product, though a bit expensive for my taste - but the 4-port switch is very handy and I haven't had any trouble with the PLE200s.

If you are capable of plugging in an ethernet cable, a power cord and pressing a button, you can master this install! I had previously purchased a Linksys Powerline system, so that I could stream Netflix movies to a Blu-Ray player. I then purchased this second adapter to give access to a second Blu-Ray player and my X-Box 360 (both located in another room). I had been using X-Box 360's wireless adapter, but the download times were abysmal. Signal from my Linksys wireless router has to travel over some distance and pass through the floor and walls. After easily connecting this second adapter, download times from X-Box Live are significantly shorter and I can access BD Live content from my Blu-Ray player. I'm very pleased with the Linksys powerline network products. I wish all networking devices were this easy to install and use!

I purchased this adapter after I had purchased the PLK300 kit as an add-on so I could also network my Directv HD DVR that we have in our master bedroom. The first adapter that came with the kit went to our family room to network our Samsung LN52A750 LCD TV, our XBOX360 and our SONY blu ray player. Installation is as easy as plug and play and the networking speeds are much better than wireless G. Our house is fairly new and all wired with CAT5 wire all over, so we have a wired network to all our computers. Unfortunately, we don't have any data plugs in our master bedrooom nor anywhere near our family room TV. I had not been very satisfied with the performance of our wireless router which we use for our laptop and am very happy we bought this "wireline" adapter. I have saved myself a lot of money and set up time on wireless adapters and the connection is very fast. We have downloaded movies from the Directv video on demand and within minutes we can start watching the movie. I would highly recommend this product, not only because of the ease of installation but also because it allows you to network up to 4 different components on one adapter (example: TV, Blu Ray, video console and cable/satellite box).

The Linksys PLS300 Powerline adapter is easy to set up and works flawlessly. I use it to provide network connectivity to my wireless system as well as my DVR and Blu-Ray player. Streaming from Netflix and other video providers looks amazing. I love this product!

This works awesome. I have these hooked up to my Dish Network DVR's so I can use my iphone app to set shows to record anywhere i am. I have cable internet and it was as simple as hooking it up and that's it. I didn't have to configure anything on my pc or do anything special to my cable modem. They have worked flawlessly and just the way i thought they would. I highly recommend these because they are so easy to set up and work exactly how the description says they do.I have also used this on my Xbox 360 as well and it worked just fine online with Bad Company 2.

I have to say this is a pretty good option to running network cabling. If you can plug stuff in you can get this to work. I got it home plugged it all in and it worked right out of the box. Great if you just want a network connection (which is all I wanted for gaming machines) haven't played with the security tool that comes with it so I can't speak on that.

The only thing I would suggest to people that are thinking about this is be mindful of where you plug the adapters in. If there are large appliances or a microwave in the line that your using the signal will degrade considerably, you should also check the download/upload speeds from your ISP (should help address some of the streaming issues from the web). At this point I am running at a consisent 110mbps to 150mbps (granted well below the peak listed). This seems to work pretty well for gaming, and have been about to do some video streaming via Hulu and my laptop with it and not getting so bogged down with buffering to make it a pain.

All in all the product does what it's advertised to do. I'm looking to pick up another one to connect some other devices in the house.

Review covers :
Linksys PLK300 PowerLine AV Ethernet Adapter Kit
Linksys PLS300 PowerLine AV 4-Port Network Adapter
Linksys PLE300 PowerLine AV Network Adapter


We live in an appartment complex with 520 units at the 7th floor. We tried to setup our wireless network without a lot of success. Connection keep cutting off, and our 30 mbits/s connection was going to waste.

So, we decided to try the powerline system from Linksys. we are using a PLK300 kit, a PLS300 (4-Port Network) and a PLE300 (Network adaptor). We got one of the 4 ports by the tv, to which is linked a Xbox360, PS3, Roku and the samsung TV. We are using a 4 ports by one computer and a printer. 1 one port is by another computer, and the last 1 one port is wired to our the wireless router (which is wired connected also to a Wii, a PS3 and a Roku). We are still using the 2 laptops and the 2 iphone wirelessly. Needless to say, we heavily use our internet connection.

I must say I am totally impressed by the powerline system. We tried first with just 2 adaptors and it was real easy to setup. Plug and Play basically. When we got up to 4 adaptors and putting security on took a little time to figure out, but once you understand, goes pretty well. I get from one of the computer the full 30 mbits download speed and 10-15 upload speed.

In a month, we have had no issue so far. No need to reset or anything.

With this experience, for "wired" network, I think powerline is the way to go. Wireless is still great for laptop and smartphone, but for gaming computer, it just does not cut it the way the powerline system does. Especially when they are a lot of interference