NETGEAR XWNB5201-100UKS 500Mbps Powerline Wi-Fi Extender/Access Point Kit (Wi-Fi Booster)

Even after paying Virgin Media £40 to "upgrade" to a Virgin Media "Super Hub" our Wifi range was still poor.I bought this kit to enable us to use wifi in our lounge which is two rooms away from the room with the hub.It was simple to set up and the wifi signal in the lounge is now excellent.It is possible ( the instructions say!) to set up the system to automatically switch from one wifi network (the Virgin media wireless hub) to the other (The Netgear Powerline hub) as you roam the house, but this part of the set up defeated me, so I select the strongest signal manually on my phone or Ipad depending where I am in the house -which is no problem really.The units are well made and have indicator lights which show correct operation and enable you to choose a power socket which give the best signal. One unit plugs into a power socket and also connects to a spare port on the Virgin hub with the Ethernet cable supplied. The remote unit plugs into any power socket extending the wifi signal from that remote unit. (Some instruction recommend that the circuits must be from the same consumer unit but my system works perfectly across power circuits from two consumer units in different locations.) The remote unit also has an Ethernet port so you can plug a device into this manually. During set up you push a small button on each unit to enable a secure connection.I downloaded Wifi Scanner app on my phone that measures the wifi signal strength.In the same room as the Virgin hub the wifi signal is -46dBm. In my lounge this drops to -85dBm without the Powerline connected and is virtually unusable. With Powerline connected I still get -46dBm in the lounge.Virgin Media do supply the same Powerline unit but it was cheaper at the time on Amazon.

These 200 units are mark 2 and work great together - but these mark 2 versions have problems communicating with the 500 units and with the mark 1 200 units.I have returned them - bought a mark 1 unit (available with the wifi extender kit) and this works fine with my 500 unit connected to the router.It is clear that Netgear have a compatability issue - I had a prior issue using two extra 500 units and after spending three hours on the phone to netgear support (they did call me back) the conclusion was they could not say why they did not work together and I should return them for a refund - which I did.

Love love love!!After moving in to my house and FINALLY getting the internet installed, it was frustrating to discover that I couldn't get it in the living room [a pinnacle room for entertainment one would say], as the signal wouldn't stretch that far! Argh! So, I did a bit of research in to wifi extenders and discovered that these 'Powerline' ones were the best.I'm not an internet guru but basically the difference between normal wifi extenders and powerline extenders is:1. Normal wifi extenders use wifi signal (a frequency of radio airwaves) similar or the same to that of your wifi, and can run in to similar difficulties your current wifi may be having. For example the reason my wifi signal did not reach my living room is because there were too many walls between the router and the living room [four to be exact]. In addition to the kitchen being one of them which has lots of large metal objects in it, which can interfere with wifi signals.2. Powerline wifi extenders do not use wifi signals to extend the reach, instead they tap into your electricity power cable. As long as where you plan on extending your internet to, is on the same power circuit, then you're in business.For me, once my flatmate got her head around the set up process (which can be a little daunting) because it does involve plugging in a laptop (watch out those with new macs that don't have an ethernet port) and setting up each of the powerline plug in devices and following what looks like computer jargon, the end result was great! We now have internet in the living room, named after our cat Allen. And it's even secured with our own password. So be aware that this extender is like having two internet supplies in your house.