Netgear XWNB5201 WiFi Access Point Review

As I have said before – and will say again – I have been very much converted on the thoughts of ‘powerlining’ in the home. a kit like this is an ideal way to eliminate WiFi blackspots; which if you live in a full brick build house like I do – you’ll understand the frustration that I get at times from loss of speed etc. due to walls and distance from the router. Whilst repeaters do do the job in terms of increasing the range, they themselves can only boost what they receive and if this happens to be a poor signal in the first place then the resulting signal will be just as bad – if not worse.

The joys of having a wireless extender that runs over a powerline is that there is no need to worry about trailing CAT cable all over the house to put in an extra access point nor worry about finding the optimum point to boost a signal. You can simply plug in the extender at a convenient location and surf away with a better wireless connection than before. Another advantage is that you can also connect in a wired device on the remote end (such as a Smart TV) meaning that all the advantages of a standard powerline adaptor is there as well.

If you’re already a Netgear powerline user, then there is even better news in store for you as you can integrate this in to the existing network giving you not one, but two additional Ethernet ports to play with. I will point out though that if you are running a powerline already and you wish to run this alongside the current setup, then the units will have to be integrated into the existing setup rather than run separately otherwise they are not picked up on the network properly. Whilst this is not a problem, its worth pointing this out.

Performance wise, don’t expect the same high speeds as you would directly from your main router, but at the same time, the XWNB5201 is no slouch – the main bottleneck in any setup is going to be the internal wiring of the house where the kit is to be used. Whilst the powerline has a 500Mbps backbone, in our case the backbone link rate was just under 300Mbps. Also as I’ve highlighted before, it would be more beneficial to include a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port on either end instead of 10/100 which is a little outdated now and this will therefore give a better throughput rate in return.

Bottom line, when it comes to increasing the range of a wireless network, there are a multitude of options to chose from and each have their pros and cons associated with them. The option that I’ve displayed here today in my option gives the best option yet that gives flexibility in where it can be installed, the speed factor and as a bonus, the additional Ethernet port as well. In my eyes you really can’t go wrong with this kit and for around £120 (~$186 / ~€143) its price is very reasonable as well.

Bottom line, Netgear have done it again in proving to me that the powerline technology works and now offer the convenience of extending your wireless network with ease and with a setup process that will have you up and running in minutes, making it one of my top picks for networking in the home at the moment.