NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Ethernet Kit

by Netgear

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.4 x 3.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000GM7F6O
• Item model number: HDXB101-100NAS
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 9, 2006

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Network Kit offers: Two HDX101 Powerline HD Ethernet Adapters to create a network out of the box. 200 Mbps bandwidth for high-quality video streaming. Built-in Quality of Service (QoS) for optimal gaming performance, and uninterrupted VoIP calls.

The NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Network Kit turns any electrical power outlet into a network connection. This kit comes equipped with two HDX101 Powerline HD Ethernet Adapters. If you're looking for a fast, easy way to provide Ethernet connectivity to just about any device in your home, then this handy adapter is an excellent solution. The HDXB101 gives you the bandwidth you need for high-quality video streaming, gaming, and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), without the headaches of running expensive Ethernet cables all over your home.

Creating network connections is as easy as plugging these adapters into the wall. View larger.

With simple plug-and-play installation, this device turns any electrical outlet into a network connection. This compact, handy device delivers up to 200 Mbps to any outlet, and with no software required, you'll be ready to network your home right out of the box.

This is an ideal solution for connecting PCs, game consoles, digital media adapters such as NETGEAR's EVA8000 to your home network. Here's how it works: plug one HDX101 into your router and a nearby electrical socket, then plug the second HDX101 into any electrical socket that is conveniently located near the device you want to network. Each HDX101 has a built-in Quality of Service (QoS) that enables smooth streaming, awesome gaming performance, and uninterrupted VoIP telephone calls. The bottom line is, you get a powerful, seamless home network that runs on your existing wiring.

The Powerline HD Network Kit makes it a breeze to transfer large files to a network storage device, such as the NETGEAR Storage Central Turbo SC101 or the ReadyNAS NV+ RND4250. It supports up to 16 HDX101 units on one home network; and it easily coexists with a host of NETGEAR's HomePlug compatible products. Additional HDX101 units are available and can be purchased separately.

System requirements include a device for connection, e.g. an available RJ-45 Ethernet port, and Microsoft Windows Vista, XP or 2000 to modify encryption and settings. Microsoft Vista drivers are available at www.netgear.com/vista.

Note: Although the HDXB101 may coexist with HomePlug 1.0 products, it is not compatible or interoperable with NETGEAR's XE104, XEPS103, XE103, XE102, or WGXB102 Powerline products.

In addition, this device can deliver up to 200 Mbps of throughput. The actual data throughput will vary depending on network conditions and environmental factors, such as network traffic volume, building material and construction, and network overhead.

What's in the Box
Two NETGEAR HDX101 Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter, Ethernet cable, installation guide, setup CD, warranty card, and support and information card.

Product Description

" NETGEAR’s Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter and Kit with Video QoS for high quality video and gaming is an ideal solution for connecting a PC, DVR, X-Box 360™ or other game console to the home network. Simply plug one HDX101 into an AC outlet near your router and the other HDX101 near the device you wish to network. Built-in Quality of Service (QoS) ensures a high-quality, consistent performance for things like real-time HD video and audio streaming as with the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer (EVA700), Internet gaming and VoIP calls. With data rates up to 200 Mbps* large file transfers to networked storage devices like NETGEAR’s Storage Central (SC101) can be up to 12 times faster than previous Powerline networking products, all with encrypted security. * HDX101 may coexist on the same network with Home Plug 1.0 products, bit it is not compatible or interoperable with NETGEAR’s XE102, XE104, XE103 and WGXB102 products "

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Completely unacceptable performance, October 2, 2007

By 

Shannon Josefina (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Ethernet Kit (Personal Computers)

I bought a pair of HDXB101 boxes in the hope that they might offer a reliable replacement for the 802.11g boxes I'm currently using. Boy was I disappointed.


I live in a recently refurbished apartment, with all new electrical wiring. In principle, this should offer an optimal environment for powerline networking.

While setup was as easy as the box claimed - it was literally a matter of plugging the two boxes into the wall, and everything worked immediately - it quickly became clear that the performance was not going to work out.

A quick word of caution before I continue: please read most of the positive reviews of this device, and notice that they are doing very unchallenging things, like streaming music. Music streaming is extremely tolerant of both poor bandwidth (bytes per second) and high latency (time it takes data to get from A to B). If all you want to do is stream MP3s and browse the web, this hardware is perfectly decent.

However, for even the most slightly challenging application, the performance is horrifying. I measured the latency between my two HDXB101 boxes, and it was consistently atrocious, even when the two were plugged into two sockets of a paired wallmount.

To give you an idea of "atrocious", my 802.11g network consistently gives a latency of 1.2 milliseconds. My gigabit ethernet network is more like 0.1 milliseconds. The *best* number I got out of the Netgear hardware was 3.5 milliseconds, and the *average* was 55 milliseconds. Holy cow! That means my bedroom and living room are as far apart, in terms of latency, as California and Germany! This is an amazingly bad number.

But what's much worse is that the number is extremely jittery. There were constant stalls of up to one second in duration, with delays of 150 milliseconds or more happening several times a second. This is the sort of thing you won't notice at all if you're playing music or viewing web pages, but it makes gaming incredibly frustrating.

The unpredictable latency has a strong negative effect on bandwidth, too. The box advertises 200 megabits per second. At no time have I measured more than 3.3 megabits per second, slightly over 1.5% of the advertised peak performance. This isn't even enough to saturate my DSL line, and is perhaps 50% slower than my wireless network. Needless to say, there's no way you're going to stream anything more than Youtube-quality video (i.e. really cheesy low bitrate) over a link like this.

In case you're interested in tinkering with configuration options to improve performance, forget about it: there are no tunable options to tweak.

In summary, the bandwidth and latency on this hardware are just shockingly bad. Unless you live in a house with lead-lined rooms and have literally no other option for getting a network signal from one place to another, you should avoid this hardware like the plague.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great if you have no other solution to a problem..., May 8, 2007

By 

R. Yung - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Ethernet Kit (Personal Computers)

I wanted to bridge two apartments on opposite sides and different floors of a building for the purpose of internet access, telephone extension over voip, and live tv streaming via xp mediacenter. There were too many walls and floors for wireless to even dream of working (tested with 2.4GHz, 5.8GHz, and 900MHz phones and only the 900MHz signals got through). I couldn't run cat5 so all my bets were on this technology working.

And they work. The two apartments are on different meters in the basement and it still works. For the best performance, I put each adapter on its own circuit in each apartment (just use the air conditioning outlets) to minimize interference from other local electrical devices. It may also help to use surge-protectors on everything else. I did have to lower the bitrate of my TV recordings to hide the delays that occasionally occur, but I may try bumping it back up since newer firmwares and other settings tweaks seem to have improved things (see the netgear forums).

HomeplugAV came out way too late for me to try, but I hear that it's performance is close if not slightly less. I think HomeplugAV does not network bridge to their older standards much like Netgear's DS2-based technology, so no benefits there.

Granted, the highest speed the Netgear utility gave me for the connection is 25Mbps, which is probably much lower if I actually measured it, but it gives me a solution that no other technology can. 802.11n runs on 2.4Ghz as well so I doubt that will do anything for me with all these walls and floors. If you're looking at these to drastically improve your existing connection speed, then you may be disappointed. But if you're deciding between no connection and a connection, then you may be pleasantly surprised.

Update: as of 4/2007, there has been two firmware/software updates, so Netgear is still providing support, with the latest adding vista compatibility. I have no experience contacting Netgear for support, but I always have low expectations of that from most companies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not in my house, October 16, 2007

By 

Shake Well "Home Theater and Gamer freak" (Alta Loma, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NETGEAR HDXB101 Powerline HD Ethernet Kit (Personal Computers)

I too am trying to solve the Xbox 360/laptop up in top floor of the house problem and this solution from Netgear was my latest attempt. The layout of my home is such that the finished basement is our office and home theater, which is where the router resides, and I am trying to push the network up two flights of stairs into the spare bedroom.

These two little boxes only managed a sporadic connection of sub-4mbs (vs the advertised 200) and completely lost track of each other four or five times in the 30 minutes I worked on them. The configuration utility unfortunately offers very little help and it too lost the remote box after a few minutes.

I have used and enjoyed many Netgear products but this one failed to perform as the Xbox nor my laptop could even pull an IP from my router. Furthermore, I needed another drop out to my garage (detached) and the connection was again spotty.

It seems that if you are jumping from room to adjoining room which are on the same breaker, you are good to go with these boxes. However, most houses have multiple breakers for reason of function and safety which do not seem to produce the results needed for an even semi-decent connection.

I'm going for the wireless N bridges that are coming out and see if that will carry the load.