I just got three of these in today. I plugged them in, and everything worked. Game over.
I haven't had time to do much bandwidth testing, but I've connected several ReplayTV's, and so far they're working flawlessly on programs recorded at the lowest bitrate across the net.
I used XE102's before, and they generally worked fine, but I had occasional glitches...boxiness etc. So far, the XE104's work flawless, and I suspect I could go up to high bitrates without an issue.
I also used a port on the XE104 to plug a remote access point to provide wireless bandwidth to the far side of the house where the signal is weak. It works like a champ.
The speed and flexibility of these units are such that this product should breath new life into the powerplug arena.
I know I'm certainly not going to be pulling any more cable.
This is a terrific product. My urban flat is long and narrow & I needed to extend my network from the back bedroom (location of my cable modem & wireless router) to the front room media center. My current 802.11g signal only reaches about half-way, and I wanted an solution that was reliable, secure and offered enough bandwidth to stream music & rapidly transfer big media files.
These little babies did the trick right out of the box. Plug each (you must purchase at least 2; see below) into a power outlet, connect one to your existing modem/router/switch via ethernet cable, and the other becomes a four-port network access point. I can't imagine a more fool-proof setup -- literally plug-and-play!
Now, I'm not sure that I believe the advertised 85Mbps transfer rate. I've done some testing with big files and find my rates are less than half this. Even so, that is fast enough for my needs and - unlike my wireless access - these have proven 100% reliable so far with a network connection that is always "up".
A few nit-picks just to give the Netgear guys something to work on: it's odd that only single-unit packages are offered, given that at least two units are needed to build a bridge. Why not offer a 2-pack starter kit like with the XE102? (ideally at something less than 2x the current price...) Also, if your home is like mine, wall outlets are precious things. It would have been great if units had been designed with a pass-through power outlet to accommodate the powerstrip plug that inevitably got displaced.
Still, these are small quibbles. I highly recommend this product to anyone looking to reliably extend a broadband network without amping-up a wireless signal for the whole neighborhood to see.
Please note that this product is not for everyone. I found out the hard way. I purchased two XE104 in hopes of extending my network to the back of my house. Upon first installing the XE104s in the locations I needed them they worked great, for about a day. From that point forward I could get no connectivity between the two devices. I tried moving them to different wall outlets and as they got closer together I could finnaly get some throughput. When they were in adjoining rooms I could get 15 Mbps and if they were on the same wall I could get up to 37 Mbps.
I finally contacted customer support throught their website and followed their recommendations to no avail. After finally calling and talking to a Level 1 tech support person I was told that my problem would need to be escalated to Level 2 support and they would contact me in 24 to 48 hours. After waiting three days I wrote back via the website requesting to be contacted and finally, a week later they sent me a email with a phone number for Level 2 support.
Level 2 support walked me through a number of test and it was determined that the product does not work in older homes and under a number of other conditions. Since my home was built in 1940, I was out of luck. My support rep spoke with his supervisor and they agreed to issue me a refund. I was asked to call back in two weeks to check the status.
After waiting the required two weeks I called back only to find that the number, (866) 274-5279, was not in operation. I tried again the following day and received the same message so I reported the outage via their website as instructed. After submitting another request for support via the web I finally received a message back that they would not honor their commitment to refund my money and further stated "We cannot state in the product information guide every possible hindrance to good performance."
All this to say Buyer Beware! The customer service stinks and they do not honor their promises.
I initially bought this XE104 because I had the XE102 which did not have the bandwidth for streaming my media center 2005 to my xbox 360. Then I found out that the XE104 had problems of streaming specifically for the Xbox 360(I'm just so lucky!) I finally find out from the Netgear forums that there is a firmware and I contacted tech support for the firmware but they would not provide it. So I waited months before a good samaritan user provided a link in the forums for the new firmware which of course streamed my Media Center to my Xbox 360 without a glitch. SWEET! so here's the link to that firmware for you guys having the same problem -> http://rs6.rapidshare.com/files/21763555/XE104_upgrade_utility_V1.0.0_0421.zip
I was very skeptical about this "hocus pocus" MAGIC device that would extend my network through the 110 AC power lines in my wall. YEAH RIGHT like they would make technology just THAT EASY!!!! ... Well ten 140$ for a pair and ten minutes later I was SURPRISED and Happy I would recommend this Highly!
not fast enough for streaming video and moving large files takes forever if you only want to share an internet connection it will suffice for that
My wife and I have maybe a dozen or so devices connected via WiFi spread throughout our four-bedroom home. Among these were an Avaya 4610SW SIP (VOIP) phone and a PC serving as an Asterisk server (Asterisk is an open source PBX). This configuration has worked well for a couple of years now. In the past few months I've been having occasional disconnects of VOIP calls coming in to Asterisk from the PSTN. After some investigation, I decided to move my phone and server off WiFi and onto a HomePlug network, using the electrical wiring as another Ethernet. The hardest part of the installation was freeing up an electrical outlet in my second-floor office where my phone is, in the basement where the server is, and in the family room on the first floor where the LinkSys WiFi router/access point is located. After that, it was just a matter of plugging in an Ethernet cable from the Netgear box to the router, and moving the Ethernet cables from the WiFi boxes for the phone and server to the Netgear boxes. It was that simple.
I did have to make a small configuration change on the phone, of which I'll spare you the detail, but which is documented here:
http://coverclock.blogspot.com/2007/02/asterisk-wifi-homeplug-and-avaya-sip.html
I wish all high-tech equipment were this easy to install.
I've used the old Homeplug 1.0 modules to extend an internet connection to my wife's office for about 18 months. While more reliable than Wi-Fi, they were slow with throughput of 4-5 Mbps. That's fine for browsing, but not for transfering large files across out network.
Netgear's new 85 Mbps modules quickly solved that problem for her. It was out with the old modules and in with the new. These things are dirt-simple. Just plug them in and connect an ethernet cable to the module and computer. That's it! You can add encryption if you like, but it's not too critical as the signal can't get get beyond your meter.
Throughput jumped to 45 Mbps and is rock-steady. Considering that "overhead" can be as much as half of a devices capacity, that's not bad at all!
However the "run" from our router through the breaker board and to her office is not that long, perhaps just one-time the width of the house. Beyond that distance however, throughput falls quickly.
I tried to use the modules to connect my Media Extender to our network as it is impossible to get an ethernet cable to where it is. The in-wall electrical circuit run to the Extender is probably 40% longer than the run to my wife's office. No joy here! Throughput fell to about 20 Mbps which was too low for the Extender to use. Looks live I'll have to wait for 200 Mbps Homeplug AV products to be released later this year.
If your goal is sharing high speed internet and minor file-sharing across your home without ethernet or wireless, this is the ticket! Just don't expect to move mountains of data with it.