Netgear WGXB102 review

The Netgear WGXB102 makes use of PowerLine technology to deliver a remote wired connection to a 54G Wi-Fi repeater.

The Netgear WGXB102 consists of two modules: you plug the XE102 bridge into a mains power socket near your router and link it to the router with the supplied ethernet cable. You then plug the WGX102 access point into a mains socket near where you want extended wireless coverage.

You can even move the Netgear WGXB102 around, if you want. It should be on the same ring circuit and not plugged in to an extension lead, though we didn't find this too much of a problem; when we tried this we still had a connection but the PowerLine bandwidth dropped from a maximum of 85 megabits per second (Mbps) to 14Mbps, still fast enough for web browsing.

Interestingly, as well as being a plain vanilla access point the Netgear WGXB102 can also function as a router, (with features such as DHCP, port forwarding and so on) configurable by the web UI. A major benefit of this extender technology is that unlike wireless repeaters, Wi-Fi bandwidth isn't halved.