Customer Reviews

NETGEAR XE103G-100NAS Powerline Ethernet Adapter

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I would have rated this 5 stars but for the price. It seems a bit expensive and if wireless had been an answer probably the way I would have gone. I have been having wireless network problems and wanted something that would extend my lan in the house without lots of wiring. This is a great answer. I read the directions (made sure it was not plugged into a power strip), plugged in near my router, went upstairs, plugged it in there and it worked, no problems and as fast as when right next to the router.

I must admit there was also a somewhat unresearched idea that my data is safer on a wire network than wireless, even with the encryption that I used when my wireless worked.

I purchased this adapter kit with some trepidation. I had read a few reviews which indicated that the stated speed (85 Mps) was grossly overstated. However, I found that the 2 units worked right out of the box and the speed was far superior to my wireless setup. My Linksys router (with 4 port switch) never really worked well in wireless mode... dropped connections, frequent need for network reconfigurations, and generally weird behavior for machines on the wireless network. I plugged one of the power adapters into one of the ports on the wireless router and another into the Ethernet port on a remote machine. And, lo and behold, it worked immediately. It appears to be running at the stated 85 Mps. However, I have read that distance from the router and separate circuit breakers (for the circuits on the router and the remote machines) may contribute to slower performance. Although my remote machine is on another circuit breaker, there doesn't seem to be a reduction in performance. BUT, the distance between the router and the remote machine is only about 50 feet and my house is only 7 years old (good wiring), so this may be a factor. Some of the poor reviews may be because the users haven't read the installation instructions and they have plugged the adapter into a power bar or a UPC unit. This will significantly reduce performance. It's best to plug the adapters directly into a wall socket.

In any case, my experience is that the units worked flawlessly and are far superior to wireless. This may profoundly change the market for wireless routers, etc. It's about time that the technology for the insertion of digital signals over power lines has finally worked. The next step... the Internet on the power grid!

This is just the ticket for my network. I had an xe 102 only setup but the units furthest away from the router had marginally acceptable speeds. I dropped one of the 103's in next to my router, which is plugged in right next to the main breaker box in my house (>5,000 sq ft). I am getting full coverage from all of the xe102's connected all over the house! My setup includes xe 103's and xe 102's, they all work together really well and the new powerline software is much more powerfull than what comes with the 102's. Thanks Netgear for stepping up the product line. Goodbye to wireless!

This powerline adaptor kit took all of two minutes to set up. It worked right of the box with no complicated set-up. My wireless was always dropping connections, so it is great to have this "wired" solution for my notebook upstairs. The speed averages about 85% of max (max is when I am directly connected to the router) and 2 to 3 times faster than wireless. Great product!

I bought this to replace the wireless network to a basement office; the wireless had been OK but I'd lose connectivity whenever the cordless phone rang. For me, powerline ethernet turned out to be worse. The throughput was better but various things in my house (washer/dryer, furnace, vacuum) would cause enough interference to kill the signal (not always, but enough to be annoying). It would also sometimes seem to go out briefly for no apparent reason. I gave up and finally ran cat5 cable through the walls and returned this.

This helps my network tremeendously in terms of speed. In other words,if you are supposed to get up to 8mbps, you will get it from your ISP. I found that hard to do on my wireless network for some reason. It doesn't necessarily do HD content, all that well though, but I think you have to get the more expensive one to do that. But it did allow me to hard wire my media center extenders to my network as well as my media center PC. I have a much more secure connection now. I do get speeds of about 40mbps most of the time, and I am reasonably satisfied with that since that is a pretty big jump in performance.

I had three Netgear XE102 Powerline units, which had been performing flawlessly for several years, to get Internet from the basement to two 2nd floor bedrooms. The XE103 units are supposed to be up to 7 times faster so I bought a two. One in the basement and the other on the second floor. My results:

1. The XE103 worked just fine with the XE102 units. That was important to me as I had not yet ordered a third XE103 unit.

2. With an XE103 in the basement I tested the two bedrooms upstairs with the other unit. One bedroom went from ~12M to ~60M (as measured by the Netgear utility). In the other bedroom the connection speed went from ~7M to ~20M.

I am very pleased with the performance and I have ordered another XE103 so I have one in each upstairs bedroom. Also, I liked how easy it was to set a security password on my network.

I prefer wired connections for stability, throughput, and security. Where I have PCs, I run ethernet cable. This product allows me to have a level of portability for my laptop as well. Installation couldn't have been easier. Plug it in and it works. It was really that simple. My router is at one end of my house. At the other end, I'm achieveing 75Mbps. My home is just two years old and I suspect that is one of the reasons for my great throughput. I couldn't be happier with this product's usability and performance. For those who find wireless lacking, this is your answer (unless of course you want to run the ethernet cable).

These puppies worked well as soon as I plugged them in. With 4 adapters (2 kits) I get between 15 and 25 Mbps all over the house. I use them to connect my TIVOs for multi-room viewing and they are plenty fast to transfer my recordings around. I also have one connected to a WIFI access point to extend my 802.11g network to the basement, which doesn't have a good signal from my primary access point.

I'm not sure how sensitive the adapters are to particular wiring but I did notice that on one outlet I got 25 Mbps and one right next to it I got 17Mbps (different circuits). I have a recently-built house and am not sure whether the performance would vary with an older electrical system.

I opened the box, I did not read the instructions, I did not load any of the included software.
I plugged the two devices in and they worked fine.
It has totally solved a squirrelly wireless networking problem.

Turns out the included software is to encrypt the data over the power-line.
I didn't bother with that as it seems unlikely my downstairs neighbor is trying to surveil my data.

According to the instructions it doesn't like being plugged into power strips. It wants a connection directly into the wall for both units. It doesn't seem to care if one unit is on the same electrical circuit as the other, which seems like the blackest magic, but who cares if it works.