My house was built in 1929. Needless to say, back then they didn’t have such fancy-shmancy things like three prong outlets, and CAT5 wiring. So what do you do when you live in a house not wired for modern conveniences like TiVo and ethernet and your wife won’t let you go around cutting holes into the plaster walls?

You can try to go wireless, but 802.11g, while sufficient for web-surfing, chokes on the sausage when you try to stream high-def video, especially if said wife wants to cook something in the microwave.

The solution turned out to be one which aroused my suspicions: the NetGear HDXB101.

The Olden Days

Why did I turn skeptical? Back in the days of dial-up, I lived in an apartment which had one phone jack, and that was—I kid you not—in my bedroom closet.

Back then, the precursor to the HDX101 was on the market. Called a “Wireless Phone Jack System,” Radio Shack carried them in just about every store.

The first time I saw the package I was geeked: all I had to do was, “JUST PLUG IT IN! No Drilling! No wiring! No Tools!” According to the box, all I really needed to enjoy wireless surfing joy anywhere in my apartment was a phone jack and an internet connection.

Luckily I had one in my bedroom closet. I whipped out my wallet headed for home, excited to try out my new gadget.

Unfortunately, that early technology had its price: I went from 28.8 kbaud to 9600 baud. NOT COOL!

But that was then, and $59.99—adjusted for inflation, $81.37—doesn’t go quite as far when you need the bandwith, and this is now, a time when you can plug things into old wiring and have them work, for around $164.99 in 2007 dollars.

The Box, The BOX, What’s In the Box?

Those who know me, know my philosophy that if you have to include an install CD with hardware that doesn’t go in a computer you need to re-think your product, so I was a little perplexed when I opened the box and found a CD-ROM. Hmm.

 

Setting that aside I peeked at the manual—yeah, I know, sissy—such that it was.

Also included were the two outlet units and a couple of CAT5 patch cables for those of you who haven’t accumulated a couple of thousand patch cables over the years.

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How Do I Make It Go?

The instruction sheet was simple enough: basically plug the two units into two different outlets, patching one into your router, and the other into the whatever you want to connect to your network. All other information was academic; what the little indicator LEDs mean, what the included software does, etc.

So I did just that. In the basement, where I have my router, I plugged unit 1 (they’re both identical) in to the powerstrip feeding power to my home setup. Upstairs I plugged unit 2 into the outlet behind my entertainment center and patched that into the NetGear EVA8000 (but that’s another story).

According to the LEDs, everything was a go. I told the EVA8000 to switch from wireless to wired networking, and it acquired an IP address.

Kazam!

Yes, it was that simple.

 

C’mon, What’s on the Shiny Disk?

Software. There’s a little utility which monitors the units—according to the manual, and from what I could decipher from the software, you can have a whole slew of these around your house and they’ll all work in conjunction as a network switch/bridge—I only had the two from the box, so I couldn’t test this feature.

Everything is encrypted between the units, and the software allows you to change the passwords and encryption settings so that things don’t go haywire if you have similar units around the house.

 

Conclusion, or, Gee You’re Being Long-winded For Such a Simple Product

Things have come a long way since 1995; I was pleasantly surprised and how easily HDXB101s were to set up. The software included was superfluous, like pickles on a cheese burger—nice to have, but not entirely necessary.

My main issue is the cost; depending on where you buy the HDXB101 the price which ranges between $140 ‒ $180. Considering how much more reliable it is than the “wireless phone jack system” of 1995, I can’t fault the retailers for asking for so much.

Still, even though$164.99 can buy a lot of CAT5 cable and spackle, nothing beats the convenience of a wireless system that you can pretty much take with you wherever you go.