RCA Wireless Modem Jack: a follow-up: it worked fine here!

Previously, we described Susan Miller's unhappy experience with connecting a RCA Wireless Modem Jack to her iMac. She claimed it resulted in irreparable damage to the iMac. We now have more information. We try it out! Phonex was so confident that their product could not be the cause of the damage that they immediately offered to send me a unit to try out. I agreed to do so (albeit a bit reluctantly). I did not test the unit on an iMac, but I did give it a whirl on my PowerBook 3400. And I can report that it worked perfectly! I plugged the Base unit into an electrical outlet on the second floor of my home and then connected it to a phone outlet. I then plugged the Extension unit to an electrical outlet on my main floor and connected this to the modem jack of my PowerBook. I was successfully online minutes thereafter. And so... Does this mean that the Modem Jack is safe to use in all cases? Obviously, I cannot say. We never meant to imply that every Modem Jack would cause damage (it would be hard to imagine a company releasing the product if that were the case). So the question is, could Susan's situation be an example of a rare case where the Modem Jack precipitated the damage? Possibly. In this regard: Susan contacted Apple about the damage and (not surprisingly) they concurred that nothing else they could think of would cause this to happen. And, we have received no reports of this damage occurring in other situations. James Reid (a licensed electrician) suggests: "Perhaps Susan's wall outlet is wired incorrectly. I'm guessing the product is designed to plug in one way only. If this is the case, a reversed wired wall outlet could cause serious problems." [Radio Shack sells an inexpensive unit that can test for this.] John Knab (of Phonex Broadband, who manufactures the Modem Jack) adds: "This product has undergone extensive quality testing by us, by Thomson Consumer Electronics, by UL labs, and finally by third party test labs to comply with FCC guidelines. With millions of satisfied users, we are very confident that this design exceeds the stringent levels set by the UL safety people. Our policy is one where we stand behind this product and will repair or replace any defective unit. We have no history of a product being damaged due to connection to the Wireless Modem Jack." So the bottom line: The Modem Jack appears to work fine with the Mac. We apologize if our initial report on this matter implied otherwise. The final word on what happened to Susan's iMac, and what possible role the Modem Jack may have played, remains to be determined.