Product Reviews

The rapid rise in the popularity of wireless networking means it has never been easier to connect your Macs together at home or in the office. However, there are situations in which wireless connectivity isn't suitable - for example, if the computers are in different rooms separated by thick walls or an office where security is a concern. In these cases, you could use a powerline adaptor such as the NeverWire 14 to network machines using the power circuit in your home or office.

The principle is simple: you connect an adaptor to each Mac you want to network - or an Ethernet hub/switch if you have one - and connect each adaptor to a plug socket. Job done.

Roughly the size of a dial-up modem, the NeverWire 14 is bigger than the Lindy Homeplug and feels quite bulky. It's sturdy enough, but won't win any prizes for looks and doesn't lend itself to being carried around with a laptop.

Each NeverWire 14 has an Ethernet socket and a power lead connector. There's also a switch you have to flick depending on whether it's connected to a Mac or a hub/switch. Five status lights

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let you see what it's up to, while a button enables you to set security (to prevent your neighbours from accessing your network over the power lines) and another carries out diagnostic checks.

Setting up NeverWire 14 is simple and doesn't need any software. The helpful QuickStart Guide explains it clearly and, after unpacking the boxes, it only took us five minutes to get up and running. We hooked up one NeverWire box to our Netgear router and the other to a PowerBook in a different room. We switched off the PowerBook's AirPort and told it to connect to the network using Ethernet and to obtain an IP address from the router using DHCP. That was it. We were linked to the network and the Internet. In our setup, the NeverWire unit connected to the router was plugged into a four-way power adaptor and not directly into a power socket, but caused no problems.

We noticed no difference in the speed of surfing the Internet or in downloading files compared with a Mac connected directly to the router, and file-transfer speeds between Macs on the network were on a par with those of our wireless network. You wouldn't want to use powerline for shuttling large files around a network - its maximum theoretical speed is only slightly faster than 10Base-T Ethernet - but it's fine for occasional use and Internet connection sharing.

Overall, we were impressed with the NeverWire 14. It's incredibly easy to set up, works well and has good security. The price is comparable to that of a wireless card, so if you need to connect a number of Macs or share an Internet connection where there's no network and wireless isn't suitable, the NeverWire 14 will do the job with aplomb.