Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys HPRO200 HomeLink Phoneline 10M Cable/DSL Router

I recently purchased the Linksys HPRO200 Phoneline 10M Cable/DSL Router and am very happy with its' performance. Although I did have a little trouble configuring Internet Connection Sharing, the Tech Support at Linksys was able to get me up and running after less than 5 minutes on the phone.

I previously purchased the Linksys HomeLink Phoneline 10M Network Card Kit from .... I have a Windows 2000 system networked pier to pier with a Windows ME system. Although I was able to share files between both computers, I was not able to share my Broadband Cable Internet connection.

With the Linksys Phoneline Cable/DSL Router I am now able to share my Internet Connection between both computers and I don't have to leave a "host" computer constantly running, as you would if using Internet Connections Sharing via a proxy server software program(or Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing).

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who is interested in sharing their Broadband Internet Connection between two, or more, computers. You won't have to pay for additional IP addresses, as most Cable providers suggest in order to share your connection. You will also benefit from the Router's built-in NAT Firewall.

This was the cheapest place I could find for the router. All in all, it works great! Just hook up the cable modem to the WAN port, and then the phoneline from the router to the wall. Have all the other computers connect to a phoneline in different places, and all can go online. Others have said they had trouble getting Win2K to get up and on the network, but I did not have a prob (since I am pretty computer savvy). On top of that, the built in bridge works great to connect via LAN using a regular Cat5 cable.

The reason for 4 stars is that I can notice the drop in speed of the internet after hooking up this router. It's still faster than dial up, but not as fast as having the computer hooked up directly to the cable modem. Linksys website says that the newest firmware will not fix this problem, so I have not tried to upgrade the firmware.

This router is great if you don't like to run Ethernet cables around the house, which can get fairly expensive. I plan on keeping the router since I do not have the time to run cables all around the house.

***UPDATE*** I just downloaded the flash upgrade for this router, and did the CNET internet speed test...(drumroll please)....The internet speed picked up and is almost just as fast as the cable modem itself! The flash was easy to upgrade, just download the file, unzip it, and view the readme file. Simple! You can even flash it while you are online! works great now! Enjoy the router! I still highly recommend it!

I have a Win2K pc connected to the LAN (ethernet) port and two PC's (One WinXP and one Win98) on a phoneline network connected to the HPNA port. On the WinXP machine I have a Netgear USB phoneline adapter (HPNA 2.0) and on the Win98 machine, I have a Intel Anypoint phoneline parallel port adapter (HPNA 1.0).

I am using this router to share a DSL connection and to bridge the Win2K PC with the phoneline network. I must say it is doing its job. I reduced one star in my rating because I ran into problems that I wasn't warned of. The internet connection sharing worked like a charm, but I couldn't make the Win2K machine visible from the phoneline network and vice versa. Also, I have a web server running on the Win2K machine which couldn't be accessed from outside (even though I had set up the forwarding correctly). Anyway, after a lot of research that yielded no results and an email to Linksys support which hasn't been replied yet after 3 weeks, I downloaded the latest firmware from Linksys which made everything work.

The installation of firmware wasn't without problems either. The first 5 times I tried to install it, I kept getting some error message and I was almost certain I [messed] up the device. The 6th time, it installed correctly.

Anyway, the thing has been working fine for 2 weeks now, hopefully, it will continue to work until the wireless routers get cheaper and better. I believe that wireless is the future.

Another issue that I have with this router is occasional freezing needing a resetting. It happens very rarely, but not sure why it occurs. I have left it on for days, but it doesn't seem to freeze because of long usage. Everytime it froze, it did it when I was browsing lightly.

Prior to purchasing this I was running an HPNA network comprised of 3 PCs. 2 with win2k and diamond HPNA cards, one with win 98 and a Netgear HPNA card. Life was good. Except�

The PC connected to the cable modem had to be on to serve as a router using ICS so the other 2 PC�s had access to the internet. Mildly annoying.

Then the office let us connect via the internet using cisco VPN software. ICS and VPN don�t talk to each other. Had to disable ICS (many clicks) to get VPN going. Kids would complain they couldn�t access the internet. More annoying.

Installed the Lynksys HPRO200 and everything booted up fine. No Muss NO Fuss. Everything talked to each other and the internet (if yours don�t, it�s a configuration problem with your PC�s not the router). Installed the firmware update (easy peasy). Dismal bandwidth. Used to get a sparkling 1.5 MBS on the PC hooked directly to the cable modem and 0.9 MBS on the others through the HPNA. With Lynksys the rates were about 30% of those. No good. Even my 6 year old complained �Dad, you know nothing about computers; this is really slow�. Cheeky twerp. When I was his age we had 1400baud modems. And we were glad to have them.

Luckily Amazon has a great returns process.

Got the 2nd Lynksys HPRO200. Hooked it up. Downloaded the firmware. Bandwidth is good, not great (that�s why they only get 4 stars). I�m able to get 1.2MBS on the PC hooked up to its Ethernet port, and 0.9MBS on the other PCs through the phone lines.

It�s still better than snaking cables and a lot less than wireless.

P.S. Be sure to use a surge protector on your phone lines when using them to network. Your phone line is the easiest path for power surges to fry your PC (or at least the card it�s connected to).

Product is an all-in-one product-router/firewall (to share a broadband internet connection) and phoneline bridge (to enable networking/internet access over unused frequencies of a household phoneline, using the HPNA 2.0 standard). Also allows ethernet-connected and phoneline-connected PCs to be networked together, all in one product for under $150. And it works great, but I needed three calls to technical support to get my product working properly-not because of bad direction (the Linksys technical support people were uniformly excellent and well-trained), but because the product doesn't come with installation software. It relies on a web-based configuration utility that I could not begin to handle on my own without being walked through it by the technical support people. (And although I'm not a techie, I consider myself above-average computer-literate).

First thing I tried to do was connect my router between my cable modem to my ethernet computer, per the booklet and instruction CD. I couldn't get the internet anymore until my first technical support call. Then I connected two upstairs computers to my phoneline using Netgear connectors (and the Netgear items came with software which automatically installed them correctly, so the two upstairs computers were able to connect to each other via the phoneline network created by the router. I was very satisfied with my decision to use the Netgear USB and PCI phoneline connectors). But only one of these two upstairs computers could get on the internet, and neither one could see the ethernet-connected computer. A second call to technical support revealed that the router had automatically assigned the two phoneline computers the same internal internet address, which technical support expertly fixed. They told me that although they could assist me setting up the internet, they weren't permitted to instruct me how to set up my internal network, but they gave me enough hints (set file and printer-sharing in Windows 98, use Netbeaui protocol) that I was able to figure that out. But then I lost the third computer again and had to call technical support again to fix it. (They had me do things like erase all my internet cookies, manually set my DNS configuration and gateways, things I would never be able to figure out from the documentation. And when the configuration is wrong, the setup utility tends to be unavailable).

Well, I'm happy with the results, but I would have preferred the setup to be more automatic. And I would think they could supply the extra ethernet cable needed for the setup.