Netgear PA-101 Home Phoneline USB Adapter

Other products by Netgear

Product Details

Product Manual [193kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004SYLO
• Item model number: PA-101
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,604 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 3, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
The PA101 USB home phone-line adapter from Netgear turns your home phone lines into a high-speed computer network. Just plug one end into the PC's USB port and the other end into a telephone wall jack (phone cable is included). Within minutes you can play multiplayer games, share files and printers, and even access the Internet on all the computers in your home at the same time. Netgear's do-not-disturb technology designs are conscious of your phone use, so you can enjoy continuous data exchange without any disruption to your phone service.

Netgear provides a limited lifetime warranty on parts and labor.

Product Description
NETGEAR Phoneline adapters allow you to transform the existing phone lines in your home into a high-powered computer network. Just plug one end into the PC's USB port and the other end into a telephone wall jack (phone cable is included). Within minutes you can play multi-player games, share files and printers, and even access the Internet on all the computers in your home at the same time - just like you do at work or at school. All this without installing any new wires in your home! NETGEAR's "do-not-disturb" technology designs are conscious of your phone use, so you can enjoy continuous data exchange without any disruption to your phone service.NETGEAR brings the latest technology to the home consumer market and makes it possible to have a 10 Mbps network equivalent to the typical corporate network connection. Now you can share files and data between home computers at the speed and efficiency of a professional network cutting down on time wasted by slower speed technologies. Your phone lines instantly become high-speed information arteries between Phoneline10X adapter-equipped PCs, laptops, their attached printers and other peripherals. NETGEAR also provides the technology to allow you to simultaneously talk on the phone while you are exchanging data among computers! The enclosed FirstGear software CD provides everything you need to share a modem - 56K, DSL, or Cable - that is connected to your PC. All of your computers with NETGEAR Phone line adapters can access the Internet simultaneously over your existing home phone wiring using only a single Internet account. And you're protected with NETGEAR's added firewall security.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars After 4 help desk calls, it still doesn't work!, July 11, 2000

By	Robert S. Moyer (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

I wish I could give it no stars! What a mess. Looking to avoid drilling holes in my floors and running cable, I thought NetGear's Home Phoneline 10X (PA101) was the answer. I was wrong. I followed the sparse directions to the letter, but I couldn't establish communication. So I call tech support. In the recorded greeting, Netgear admitted that they're getting a high number of help calls. I'm not surprised. After wait times of a half hour or more (in their defense, NetGear has wonderful hold music) I finally get a tech that tells me that my house phone system is wired incorrectly so I would have to run a phone line from one PA101 to the other (using the home phone system so I wouldn't have to run cable is the whole reason why I bought their product in the first place! ) I was also told that I would have to reinstall the software, and I would need to hardcode the IP address in. None of this worked. Long story short, after a week of frustration, I have two weird looking but expensive paperweights, no LAN, and a great deal of buyer's remorse.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It, quite simply, rocks, August 28, 2003

By A Customer

After recently moving into a new house, I soon found there was no feasible way to get a wired ethernet setup going, what with architectural constraints.
I just wanted to share cable internet access among our 3 computers, without going wireless; the low throughput and limited range of an affordable wireless solution (802.11b) doesn't appeal to me.
After a bit of research, I picked up a Linksys HPRO200 router and ordered this litte gem.
It took one week to receive the PA-101, and within 5 minutes, my network was up; and I didn't have to configure an access point, WEP encryption, or any of the hassles of wireless. No need to route any ethernet cable between floors either.
It's too bad this technology is being rendered obsolete; sort of reminds me of the way Beta VCRs were supplanted by VHS. The inferior product was marketed more aggressively...
On the bright side, HPNA 2.0 adapters can be found for as litte as $5 now.
And yes, the PA-101 works just fine with windows ME, and 2000, and 98. I've tested all of them, and recommend this for anyone.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good way to set up a fast, efficient, simple network at home, May 28, 2003

By	P. Babin "MotionStory" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No problems setting up this system which transfers data between rooms via the phone jacks . I have broadband internet access which works plenty fast on the networked computers in the house.
I'm under the impression that this system is being phased out as it's not being offered any more at the large stores in my area (Best Buy, Frys, etc.) I'm attributing this to the wireless push being made by Netgear and others.