threevue

Great in theory, shitty in practice.

I bought the Netgear XAVB101 Powerline Ethernet Adapter Kit based on what someone had told me – that you connect one of the adapters to your router and plug it into the wall, and then plug the other one into the wall somewhere else in the house and then into your computer and BAM! you’ve got a 200mbps, secure LAN without any wires strewn across the house. Bet you didn’t know you could route the internet through your electrical system, huh? You can connect up to 16 adapters in one house, which means you could have super-fast gaming (it doesn’t require drivers, so it would work on the Xbox 360 and PS3) as well as internet downloads aplenty. The only thing stopping you would be your internet speed.

I picked this kit up because I thought it would be a great way to secure my iMac and keep the internet blazingly fast. On wireless, I was getting pretty good speeds, but not quite at what my ISP says I should be getting. After setting everything up, I tested the internet speed, and it was 1/3 the speed of my wireless LAN. I don’t know if it has to do with my house’s electrical wiring, but needless to say I was disappointed and took the thing back. Hopefully others will have better luck with it than me, but as it stands I can’t recommend it to anyone.