I installed a Netgear XE102 powerline to wireless adapter this morning to see if I could get my X-Box a better wireless signal.

Installation was a snap – I’m very imperssed how far powerline has come. Plug the powerline adapter into the wall, plug an ethernet cable into the same adapter in my den and into a switch. In my living room, I then plug in another adapter, and voila, instant wireless range extender. No setup, just works. And my X-Box went from poor to good signal quality (I’ll talk about my X-Box Media Center Extender experience in another post later).

Tied for the best experience with the installation, was the bright yellow business card I found in the Netgear box. With a big Netgear logo at the top, there is a paragraph of information underneath it that informs you that software used in building the product uses the GNU General Public License and the GNU Lesser General Public License. It also gives you a link to download the sourcecode on Netgear.com. (Ironic that a source code link directs you to an ASP page).

Bravo Netgear! Bravo for calling out that you use open source in a document external to the manual or just in a website like some of your competitors.