Last week.

Last week, I reviewed an new Wi-Fi wireless Internet gear that promised to deliver a fast Internet signal over your home and found the strange models weren't so great.

however there's more than one way to secure a strong, fast Internet signal all across your house. You aren't limited to using a single wireless router You don't have to install a assortment of complicated wireless "range extenders" And you don't have to snake networking cables between the sides of your walls.

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

You just stopper one of the adapters into a standard electrical egress near the place where your Internet connection notes your home. Then, you conjoin the adapter to your wired or wireless router nearest you plug a second, identical adapter into an electrical exit 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 emergencyed

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

I first reviewed these Powerline adapters in 2003 I liked them, nevertheless they were a little deliberate and never took off. Now, however, undivided of the leading home network production makers, Netgear, offers a whole line of faster Powerline adapters.

I've been testing single in kind of Netgear's newest models, the XE104 which outlays $100 per adapter, and I can heartily attract favor to it. It couldn't be simpler or more effective. In my proofs the XE104 gave me wicked-fast connections. I tried plugging Windows and Macintosh laptops directly into the adapters in steads 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 from one side the air.)

In all scenarios, the Netgear XE104 adapters delivered nearly the replete speed of my Internet service, which in my case is highly fast -- 15 megabits by means of second downstream and two mbp upstream. In fact, the XE104 can handle flourishs up to 85 mbps, far faster than any habitual connection.

You can use up to four Netgear adapters at one time and the company claims they will conceal a 5,000-square-foot home. Netgear includes optional software to encrypt your Powerline connection, if it were not that 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. on the contrary Netgear is the leader in this category, and I didn't example 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 price and hassle of buying and connecting a separate access point. on the other hand it's slower and uses older technology. In my criterions it was less than half as fast as using the XE104 with a separate, recent 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 on a level makes it hard to find the XE104 forward its Web site, netgear.com. It lists it subject to a section called "Bridges, Access Points, and Range Extenders" You can pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain them at computer stores and other retail exits

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

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