Airport Extreme real-life experiences

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lemonadedlemonaded
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
my peanutbutter 17" is coming soon and i'm thinking of repurchasing 12" ibook for my bro(otherwise he's stuck with my ancient beige tower g3 266 from high school for his remaining 2 years of design program..). i'm hoping to set my house(2 floors + basement-i have my studio and cable connection here) with wifi so that both of us can be online anywhere in the house. the base station has to be in the 'base'ment (:P) or the ceiling of the basement and my room is on the second floor. so, i want to ask those with similar setup or with airtport extreme, how this station is really like. i heard when one of the clients is 'b', the whole station drops to that level, dropping my peanutbutter down to b as well instead of running g. is that true? if so, am i better off with original airport? will i need an atenna for the range to reach my bedroom? are there any similar products that are less expensive and still competitive/compatible? any opinions that will help me make the decision will be greatly appreciated. thanks
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 24
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    you're better off with 802.11B anyway as you have:

    -more range

    -more compatible (since few people have 11g compliant cards yet)

    -still way enough bandwidth for your cable.



    and if you want to network the house with anything high-speed enough to comfortably swap big files (read 500MB+) around in short time, you need Ethernet. That's how it is.



    G-News
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  • Reply 2 of 24
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    I think I'm getting this
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  • Reply 3 of 24
    infoseekerinfoseeker Posts: 29member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    I think I'm getting this



    ast3r3x,



    I just ordered that same unit yesterday from amazon.com...hopefully I won't have any issues . There was a place named zipzoomfly.com that was $6 cheaper overall, but I don't have any experience with them...so I paid more for my sanity...
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  • Reply 4 of 24
    tacojohntacojohn Posts: 980member
    I bought an Extreme basestation when it was first announced. I was living in a dorm at the time and was having extreme problems with it resetting itself about every hour- it was very annoying!



    But Apple released a firmware update for it and I haven't had any problems with it at all!



    Another really cool thing that I didn't think I would be using as much as I do is the USB printng. Its very nice to be able to have you printer no-where near you computer.



    I don't know- I've heard good things about the D-Links and LinkSys routers. But the apple does offer some unique things and plus it'll be ofically supported by apple if you ever have problems.



    I have a 3 story house and my room is on the 3rd floor- I can get reception just fine in our basement. The basestation is on the 3rd floor. My roommate just got a PC notebook with WiFi build in and it works with the basestation just fine.



    I'd say go with the apple. Here are some pics of my basestation if you want to take a look....



    AirPort Extreme Images
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  • Reply 5 of 24
    lemonadedlemonaded Posts: 46member
    i'd just love to get extreme but after making the peanutbutter purchase, i'm so down on dough.. and this d link router looks pretty good. is it fully compatible with macs? any installations and such? how about the range compared to airport??



    oh, i won't be doing any networking, nothing heavy anyway. my main concern is going online anywhere in the house with similar speed as wired cable
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  • Reply 6 of 24
    cyloncylon Posts: 126member
    I got the Belkin 54g wireless router a few months ago. I'd say for the few extra dollars, go for the G instead of b system. That way your more compatible. You can still use b cards on them. I remember my first mac I bought, a MacPlus, the salesman told me to just get the old 512k mac because you'll never need 1MB of ram. I went ahead and got it and never regretted it. You may not need the speed now of 54g router, but it doesn't mean you won't later, so if you can afford it, I'd say its worth it. I went with the belkin system based on the reviews in MacWorld magazine a few months ago. It has a few quirks setting it up, but seems to work great otherwise.
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  • Reply 7 of 24
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    I wasn't trying to say he should get a B station, no way, but run a G station in B mode if you want to get the points I mentioned above. Use G when it's needed or more widely available
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  • Reply 8 of 24
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    The reason I picked the D-Link...



    Wireless Operating Range

    _ _ _ Indoors: Up to 328 feet (100 meters)

    _ _ _ Outdoors: Up to 1312 ft (400 meters
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  • Reply 9 of 24
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    that's nice if you need it, but also raises additional security concerns: the bigger your range, the more likely you're going to attract other people, the tougher you have to set your security measures.
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  • Reply 10 of 24
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    The d-link is good and, yes, it's fully compatible with airport.



    Just make sure their 'airplus' feature is disabled. It will screw up your connection if it's on.
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  • Reply 11 of 24
    nofeernofeer Posts: 2,427member
    I thought if on your g network there is a b, then everything drops to b speed anyway, too bad there isn't a b wireless router with usb printer. I thought of getting a g card for my dell to reduce interference from my cell phone, the 1150 series dell card drops signal all the time and gets interference from the phone, my iMac dv 400 airport b just hums along at 2700-5000kbs (cable) i wish apple made a windows airport card. What other manufacturers for windows card do you suggest, what's the easiest to set up???
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  • Reply 12 of 24
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by G-News

    you're better off with 802.11B anyway as you have:

    -more range





    I'm pretty sure b and g have the same range. 'a' has shorter range because the median frequency is much higher. 'g' and 'b' both run at 2.4Ghz.
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  • Reply 13 of 24
    gsxrboygsxrboy Posts: 565member
    When ADSL hits my area I am thinking of going wireless, how badly does it all get mucked up by microwave oven use?
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  • Reply 14 of 24
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    I think I'm getting this



    i got this last weekend at Frys. It has been great. no problems yet. It has a lot of security features. 128 WEP encryption, etc.
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  • Reply 15 of 24
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    I have a netgear 802.11b router. Works really well. My cube and my G4 tower are hooked directly up to it, and my brothers wintell computer (that he is getting rid of to go back to macs) runs wirelessly off of it all the way up in his bedroom. The router is in my basement, and my house is two storys. My dad just got a new laptop and he can pick up a signal from anywhere in the house. Works well, I have no complaints.
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  • Reply 16 of 24
    musicaltonemusicaltone Posts: 189member
    Why does the router have to be in the basement? Are u sure you can run a cable up to say the ground floor and put it there?



    I have the AE base station and it works a dream with my 15" PB - good range and excellent integration wiht the mac, but have used the Dlink too at my sisters house and that works fine also - although I did have to use a PC to set it up first.
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  • Reply 17 of 24
    ensign pulverensign pulver Posts: 1,193member
    Just set up an AirPort Extreme base station and a 802.11g G4 tower and 17" Powerbook last night for a client. They had been moving small files over 802.11b and were of course dismayed at the speed. With the new Extreme setup, we moved a 150 MB PS file in VERY short order. I didn't time it, but we just watched the progress bar zip along. They were impressed and now view AirPort Extreme as a viable solution for their small network.



    Oh, and I second the wonderfulness of AE Base Station+USB printer+Rendezvous. Five minutes and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
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  • Reply 18 of 24
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    The reason I picked the D-Link...



    Wireless Operating Range

    _ _ _ Indoors: Up to 328 feet (100 meters)

    _ _ _ Outdoors: Up to 1312 ft (400 meters



    A non-issue if you buy the $250 Basestation with it's RF (MCX) connector. You can buy or build your own antenna. Sector-panel, wire-grid w/bow-ties, yagi, pole, etc.
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  • Reply 19 of 24
    carson o'geniccarson o'genic Posts: 1,279member
    Has anyone compared using a software base station on their PowerMac etc versus a base station. I'm getting a new G5 and a PowerBook (its a good year to be poor), and I was reading through what Apple says on the matter. Most of the time it looks like they avoid telling you you don't need a bse station, so they can sell you more stuff. my mac will be connected to the DSL modem and I just want to be able to surf the web in another room etc. Any advice?
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  • Reply 20 of 24
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    I'd try with the powermac software basestation first. if you're satisfied, you saved a few bucks. if not, you haven't lost anything, since you'd have needed an airport card for the powermac anyway, if you wanted to connect it to the basestation wirelessly.



    my software basestation worked fine the last time I tried
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