Extend your home network using existing electrical outlets

Have you ever scratched your head thinking of ways to extend your internet broadband access to additional rooms in your home? Or even how to put your XBOX or PS3 game console in your bedroom and still have it connected on your home network for playing online games? Fortunately there are solutions available that will enable you to extend your home network coverage anywhere in your home without running any additional cabling or external wire trucking. These solutions make use of the existing electrical wiring to pass IP network data with rates as high as 85 Mbps which will be more than enough for home needs.

The NETGEAR XE103 85 Mbps Powerline Network Adapter provides such a solution. This is an excellent product for extending your home network by using standard electrical outlets. The diagram below shows you a simple home network setup using the Netgear XE103.

One possible scenario as shown on the diagram above is to extend your Internet access from your office room to your living room. You just need to plug in two XE103 adapters one in each room (on the electrical outlets) and then use the office room adapter’s 10/100 Ethernet port to connect to your Internet router, and the other adapter to connect any Ethernet-ready device (laptop, PC, XBOX, PS3, DVR etc). If you connect also a third powerline adapter on a different room, then it will participate in the same network segment as the rest of your devices and you will be able to connect another device in your home network.

There is no software to install and works with all Windows versions, or any Game Console types (Xbox,PS3, Wii etc).

The cheapest price I found for this product is from Amazon.

Update: Another similar great product from Netgear is the NETGEAR XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit which includes 2 adapters delivering 200 Mbps throughput and also supports 128-bit encryption for secure data communication. This model earned also an “EDITOR CHOICE” award from PC Magazine, so its worth it to check it out.