Is Airport Worth it?

idude

My dad is thinking about getting DSL for us, and we're trying to decide if we should get airport or not. Is it worth it? After all, it is more expensive that just using ethernet. Is the convenience and ease of setup worth the extra money? Thanks.



Also, I have talked to some people who have said that wired connections are more reliable and faster than wireless. Is this true?

hmurchison

Depends on how much mobility you need.



DSL in the states pretty much maxes at 7mbps if you want to spend a fortune. Wireless supports 11mbps so speedwise you're fine. If I had an ibook or powerbook I'd probably go for it myself because I like being untethered. Also with Rendezvous coming in Jaguar I know that I will easily be able to use Airport to grab files from my Desktop Macs.

eman

If you have a laptop then yeah, it's definately worth it. If you don't have a laptop why not just use ehternet?

macxusr

i am in agreeance with EmAn. if you have a laptop it is the greatest thing since sliced bread and it is a necessitity!! if you have a desktop not worth it.....



a suggestion though. look at other companies basestations. the airport base is quite pricey compared to some of the other ones you can get (I have a linksys meself and i like it. i have also heard good things about the netgear and dlink)



[ 08-03-2002: Message edited by: macXusr ]</p>

trevorm

[quote]Originally posted by iDude:

<strong>My dad is thinking about getting DSL for us, and we're trying to decide if we should get airport or not. Is it worth it? After all, it is more expensive that just using ethernet. Is the convenience and ease of setup worth the extra money? Thanks.



Also, I have talked to some people who have said that wired connections are more reliable and faster than wireless. Is this true?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Well we have DSL together with a Powerbook 800 and iMac G4 800 hooked up to the net using Airport and its great!!!! There is no reliability problems ever infact it is much better IMHO than a wired setup. And whats more you can take your laptop or computer anywhere in or out of your house and not worry about having a long enough cable so you can get on the net!

idude

Thanks guys. Right now, we have 3 laptops and 3 (soon to be 4) desktops (including 1 dell). I'm trying to talk him into Airport, but it isn't easy.

aquatic

Why are Airport cards still 100 bucks!? They've been this way ever since being introduced years ago. I'm thinking about getting something from Lucent or whatever for less than half the price. I'd just like compatability. (Will other cards work 100%?) I may wait 'till I get to college this Fall to check out Ed prices, but 100 bucks is still too much. And the cards don't even look like alien space ships, so no bonus worthy of $ there

jet powers

iDude: Get a dlink for around $80.



Aquatik: I don't think that non-Airport cards will work in the Airport slot.



ting5

aquatic

Nothing else besides the official Airport card will work in an iBook 500?



If it did would all the Apple utilities work with it?

eman

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatik:

<strong>Nothing else besides the official Airport card will work in an iBook 500?



If it did would all the Apple utilities work with it?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Because most of them for portables (if not all of them) go in a PC Card slot, which the iBook's don't have.

jet powers

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatik:

<strong>Nothing else besides the official Airport card will work in an iBook 500?



If it did would all the Apple utilities work with it?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Most 802.11 cards have an antenna attached to them. The Airport card has a small port that goes to the already bult-in antenna in the iBook. Since the Airport card is located underneath the keyboard, there is no room for the attached antenna of a non-Airport card.



ting5

ijerry

the educational prices on the airport card only get you $7 off the retail price.



To topic: I love my airport and couldn't imagine using anything else. It has built in firewall which can be tweaked and is very reliable.



why is it that you put your 2 cents in, but it is a penny for your thoughts? Somebody is making a penny.

jmoney

No doubt man, if you're going for the wireless hook yourself up with some Airport action. I'm just sitting here... doing nothing.. posting on AI from my iBook, oh wait now I'm going up the stairs, still net surfing.. Yea man, go for the Airport :cool:

aquatic

fsck Airport is expensive. 7 bucks off!? No wonder Dartmouth (my next door college) is switching to Dell. Apple needs to smarten up. College students like me are poor Colleges themselves are also dumping Apple. Bad trend. Apple should remember the help it got from colleges like Dartmouth



From my post in the BlueTooth incorporation thread,



[quote]bluetooth will be integrated into the airport card at the same price point. <hr></blockquote>



I will buy that. Maybe that would make the damn Airport cards worth the 100 bucks they've been charging since they came out years ago.

engpjp

What about range?



I have a friend (even though he is a PC buff) who has been trying to get WiFi to work, both in his company and for several other friends and colleagues. According to him, two out of five systems/constellations managed to work, but the throughput was low and became almost nil as soon as there was a wall between. Three of the systems, as I mentioned, he couldn't get to work at all - not even with the help of hotline assistance.



Please bear in mind that this was on PC's, and on a mix of laptops and desktops. Also, according to what he said, all the cards were from the same company and did not have any antenna sticking out anywhere.



Does anyone here have similar, negative experiences? Any constructive comments?



I'm considering establishing a home network with three Apple laptops (one of them a WallStreet, the others recent iBooks), based on AirPort/WiFi, but his earnest warnings left me rather spooked....



engpjp

jmoney

See, I don't buy the whole poor college student thing, because I too am a student. However, I do something that's considered odd, I work a part-time job. I design webpages, do some light consulting/network setup, and keep a responsible budget. To boot, I don't bother with the Apple Education discount for two reasons,

1) instant gratification of getting your computer right then and there and

2) for the most part it really isn't that much cheaper than retail, (except for $30 off ipod )



When you take a look at any retail computer store you will find the price for wireless equipment to be approx $79-$129 for the wireless card. I don't believe it's the Airport Cards themselves that are overpriced, I believe it's the base stations.

thegelding

have your dad look at it this way...if you're gonna spend a couple of hundred thousand on a home, go ahead and spend a few hundred bucks so there are no cables running all around that home...g

matsu

Let's not get into Apple pricing. Apple's retail prices ought to be what their edu prices currently are, at a minimum. Don't blame people for not wanting to get reamed when they need to buy a computer or peripheral. If you like Apple's products then you're stuck, you need to get the computer from them, but their's no need to waste money on their over-priced airport peripherals. I'd only buy the airport cards for a laptop. If you have a mac desktop machine you can get a USB airport dongle (more like a cable with a box on the end). A college buddy's dad uses them in his warehouse, they work perfectly.) Maybe they're not pretty, but you can just hang them behind/under your desk.



Do NOT buy the base station. Do you have PC's? This is hardly Apple's fault but I'll bet you that your mac plays nicer with any standard 802.11 base than your PC's would play the AirPort base station. Blame Linksys, SMC, et all. It's supposed to be standard, but...



You won't ever hook up 50 computers in your house. You can get a much cheaper 802.11 base station with good encryption, support for 5-10 users, admin and set-up from EITHER a PC or a Mac, firewall, and a gamers port (an ethernet connection in front of the firewall, usefull for a mail server too).



What I don't from Apple is the whole hullabaloo about AOL ??? I know that cable companies in some areas want you to pay for any extra computers tied to your connection and some take measures to stop you from 'sharing' you connection. My cable provider doesn't like you too, but I know two people in my area running small networks (at home and business) and they only buy one connection and share it. Everything's behind one IP and as far as the cable company is concerned they have only one connection. Never experienced any problems, mail, streaming, web forms all work. What gives???



[ 08-05-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>

jmoney

See but the fact of the matter is, you get what you pay for. In our house we have three macs, and two pcs. My mom and I run the macs and my dad and brother do the pcs. We've got an iBook her school issued, a G4 tower that we both use, and I just recently purchased an iBook for school. My dad and brother both have low end HP Celerons and both are using USB wireless adapters. My father has a Linksys and my brother has a Belkin. We are in fact running it off a Rev 1 Airport Base Station. I have been able to go downstairs (base is upstairs) and outside and still manage a decent signal. However, my brother's room which is two doors down on the same floor gets a weaker signal than my iBook does outside. When file sharing I notice a big difference between sending files to one of our macs, compared to one of the pcs. Perhaps $99 for an Airport card is a bit much, but do you really think people are going to change whether or not they buy a card if it were $10-$20 cheaper? There's no real reason to drop the price, most other companies are charging similar prices for the same technology, Apple's technology is far superior. Just my $.02. Thank you please drive-thru



<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

jesperas

A couple of brands to look at are Orinoco and SMC. I believe the Orinoco WAPs are essentially the same guts as Airport, and can even be flashed with the Airport firmware.



Don't know how important this is for you, but SMC can pass Appletalk packets though the wireless connection (most others can't). I believe the Orinoco can too with its own firmware, though I'm not positive; if it can't, it should be able to if flashed with the Airport firmware.



Linksys doesn't provide tech support when using their stuff on Macs, though they say their products are Mac compatible.

jesperas

[quote]Originally posted by JMoney:

<strong>However, my brother's room which is two doors down on the same floor gets a weaker signal than my iBook does outside. </strong><hr></blockquote>



Could be the USB adpater, or could be funky interference coming from your brother's room. Have you tried using the iBook from there?