Last week, I reviewed near new Wi-...

Last week, I reviewed near new Wi-Fi wireless Internet gear that promised to deliver a fast Internet signal quite through your home and found the recently made known models weren't so great.

yet there's more than one way to prepare a strong, fast Internet signal all from one side of to the other your house. You aren't limited to using a single wireless router You don't have to install a lump of complicated wireless "range extenders" And you don't have to snake networking cables from one side your walls.

Instead, there's a simple alternative that's frequently overlooked: Using small gadgets called Powerline adapters, you can way your Internet connection around your house above your regular electrical power lines, the uniteds already in your walls. It really works, it's fast, and it doesn't disrupt your electrical body Even better, it requires naught technical skill.

You just stopper one of the adapters into a standard electrical exit near the place where your Internet connection jot downs your home. Then, you link together the adapter to your wired or wireless router nearest you plug a second, identical adapter into an electrical egress in a distant room where you lack an Internet connection. Finally, you stopple a computer (or even a wireless access point) into that inferior adapter. There's no setup, no required software and no technicians or tools are penuryed

When you stopple a computer into the next to the first Powerline adapter, it's as if that computer is right nearest to your cable or DSL modem and router You are onward the Internet at full spe If you stopple a Wi-Fi wireless access point into the inferior Powerline adapter, it will create a wireless network in and around the distant field which multiple computers can use.

I first reviewed these Powerline adapters in 2003 I liked them, yet they were a little inactive and never took off. Now, however, single in kind of the leading home network yield makers, Netgear, offers a whole line of faster Powerline adapters.

I've been testing single of Netgear's newest models, the XE104 which charges $100 per adapter, and I can heartily attract favor to it. It couldn't be simpler or more effective. In my ordeals the XE104 gave me wicked-fast connections. I tried plugging Windows and Macintosh laptops directly into the adapters in fields where my wireless signal was weakest. I also tried plugging a Wi-Fi wireless access point into an XE104 adapter and picking up the connection wirelessly forward the laptops. (An access point is a wireless gadget that takes a wired Internet connection and propagates it between the walls of the air.)

In all scenarios, the Netgear XE104 adapters delivered nearly the well stocked [i]or[/i] provided speed of my Internet service, which in my case is self-same fast -- 15 megabits by second downstream and two mbp upstream. In fact, the XE104 can handle prospers up to 85 mbps, far faster than any customary connection.

You can use up to four Netgear adapters at formerly and the company claims they will hide a 5,000-square-foot home. Netgear includes optional software to encrypt your Powerline connection, yet this is needed only if you share an electrical a whole with other families.

Linksys, Belkin and other companies also make Powerline adapters, sometimes called bridges. however Netgear is the leader in this category, and I didn't experiment the other brands.

The company also makes a Powerline adapter with a built-in wireless access point for the distant place the $150 WGXB102 model. This saves you the splendor and hassle of buying and connecting a separate access point. if it be not that it's slower and uses older technology. In my proofs it was less than half as fast as using the XE104 with a separate, fresh wireless access point.

The XE104 is officially called the XE104 85 Mbp Wall-Plugged Ethernet Switch. That's like calling a table lamp the LS482 75 Watt Wall-Plugged Switched Illumination Device.

Netgear equable makes it hard to find the XE104 forward its Web site, netgear.com. It lists it subordinate to a section called "Bridges, Access Points, and Range Extenders" You can purchase them at computer stores and other retail exits

These adapters are a terrific way to clear up Internet dead spots

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided by dint of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved