I moved my home office to another part of the house recently but there was was one small problem — a chimney ran behind one of the walls, greatly diminishing my wifi signal. Running ethernet cable would have solved the problem at a mighty cost so I decided to try the latest networking over power lines gear. Netgear’s 85 megabits-per-second Powerline adapters had great reviews (like this one by Mossberg) so I ordered a pair. Actually, I ordered a pair of switches (each with 4 ethernet ports) designated as model XE104G. You can also buy single port adapters alone or in a two-pack.
After they arrived, I opened the package, ran a cable from one adapter to the router, plugged it in a wall socket, went downstairs, plugged in its twin, ran a cable to my computer, waited 3 seconds and ta-da live Internet. Total installation time: about 3 minutes. It’s provided a much speedier connection than wifi and I can plug in three other items down here as well. If I ever decided to link up a stereo or TV to my computer for music and video streaming, I think this would have to be the preferred solution. And thus the slow migration to all Netgear networking equipment continues…
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