Exploring Time Capsule: WiFi 802.11n and the 5GHz Band

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  • Reply 21 of 29
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bdkennedy1 View Post


    I think it's ridiculous that for the amount of money you spend on the Time Capsule or Airport it doesn't support dual channels at the same time. Instead you have to go out and spend more money on another router!



    My Netgear router was $119 at Fry's and it operates 2 channels simultaneously - 5ghz for wireless N and 2,4ghz for wireless a/b/g.



    I thought that was supported on Apple's Airport routers? Select the "802.11n (b/g compatible)" (or something close to that, it's the first option on the drop down). Doesn't that setting use both, from what I understood.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DeaPeaJay View Post


    I just switched my Airport Extreme to 5Ghz and saw a 600MB file transfer 3 seconds faster to my hard drive. Am I missing something?



    I'm 10 feet away from the base station and there's nothing interfering with the signal.... well... someone is talking on the cell phone, but I doubt that would slow it down *that* much.



    That could be for any number of reasons. I've found that the drives in laptops are often a limiting factor. So it could be something else that's limiting your bandwidth. And as the article stated, wireless can be a finicky beast at best.



    As for the Gigabit Ethernet being slow ("AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule have relatively poor Gigabit Ethernet performance"), on my Extreme, using Ethernet is 2-3 times faster than wireless. And then I'm fairly certain the bottleneck was my laptop. The article makes it sound like Ethernet isn't much faster than the wireless.



    Hooking up an old PPC mini, which only has Fast Ethernet, I've come to the conclusion that my wireless N performance is about on par with 100 Mbps Ethernet.
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  • Reply 22 of 29
    Quote:

    The next segment in this series will look at our actual test results comparing wireless performance between modern 802.11n devices, older computers that only support 802.11g, and systems directly connected over Ethernet. We'll also compare performance of 10/100 Fast Ethernet offered by last year's AirPort Extreme, and the Gigabit Ethernet performance of currently shipping Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme base stations, and compare how the base stations stack up against a dedicated file sharing server.



    How about including an Ethernet Over Power product (such as the Advatel PowerLine 85 Ethernet Adapter) in your list of comparisons/alternatives?
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  • Reply 23 of 29
    datamodeldatamodel Posts: 126member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bdkennedy1 View Post


    I think it's ridiculous that for the amount of money you spend on the Time Capsule or Airport it doesn't support dual channels at the same time. Instead you have to go out and spend more money on another router!



    My Netgear router was $119 at Fry's and it operates 2 channels simultaneously - 5ghz for wireless N and 2,4ghz for wireless a/b/g.



    A is 5 GHz, but I feel your pain - the options are to run N/B/G simultaneously or N/A simultaneously. I'm trying to run N, A and G, so had to get my old Belkin B/G access point out for the G (for Ghetto) network.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bdkennedy1 View Post


    The other thing I don't like about the Airport is that it requires software installed on your computer to operate. If you want to change a setting you either have to be at that computer, or be running Remote Desktop.



    I had bought a gigabit Airport Extreme and retuned it the next day. It's uncharacteristic of Apple to make something more complicated that it's competition.



    To be fair, the software is preinstalled on every single Mac and any of them can configure it (assuming you know the AEBS password). I found it the other way (simpler), I was ready to stick a cable in it, and browse to 192.168.0.1 and set it up. Actually I just clicked "Airport Utility" and there it was, ready to configure.



    It impressed me, being so much simpler than the competition, so I guess it depends on your outlook and expectations.



    Cheers,



    Martin.
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  • Reply 24 of 29
    cavallocavallo Posts: 57member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Let us know how many workers develop WiFi tumors.



    Dude - they're only graphic designers.
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  • Reply 25 of 29
    eh270eh270 Posts: 60member
    I am intrigued by the idea of bumping my AP Extreme to N/5GHz, and adding another WAP for slower access. How would I go about doing this using something like a netgear WGR614? Would I turn off DHCP and hard-code the IP address to something in the range that the AP Extreme sets? Or would I leave DHCP on and run it as a sub-net or something?
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  • Reply 26 of 29
    datamodeldatamodel Posts: 126member
    That would work, the other thing you can do is set the DHCP server in each box to a different range in the same subnet. I used 10.10.10.* as my network, and the AEBS N/WPA/5 GHz gives out 10.10.10.80 to 10.10.10.90. The Belkin B/WEP/2.6 GHz gives out 10.10.10.91 to 10.10.10.100.



    Cheers,



    Martin.
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  • Reply 27 of 29
    eh270eh270 Posts: 60member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by datamodel View Post


    That would work, the other thing you can do is set the DHCP server in each box to a different range in the same subnet. I used 10.10.10.* as my network, and the AEBS N/WPA/5 GHz gives out 10.10.10.80 to 10.10.10.90. The Belkin B/WEP/2.6 GHz gives out 10.10.10.91 to 10.10.10.100.



    Cheers,



    Martin.



    I see. Then I assume you run the ethernet cable from a LAN port on the AEBS to the WAN/Internet port on the second router...
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  • Reply 28 of 29
    datamodeldatamodel Posts: 126member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eh270 View Post


    I see. Then I assume you run the ethernet cable from a LAN port on the AEBS to the WAN/Internet port on the second router...



    Just connect the LAN port to LAN port. The WAN port is for ADSL connection, so you still use that (if you ever did) to connect to the Internet.



    So, mine goes:



    Internet---->AEBS WAN PORT-----AEBS LAN PORT<----> Belkin LAN Port



    Cheers,



    Martin.
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  • Reply 29 of 29
    I just got a new 4th Generation Time Capsule, and the MacBook to which it is attached is running Mountain Lion and Airport Utility 6.10.31.

    I don't find the ability to set Wide Channels anyplace.  The article by Prince McLean
     which you cite, has some great screenshots of how to find that setting, but my version of Airport Utility just doesn't have that setting under Wireless Options.  The article that has those screenshots is from March 31, 2008... nearly five years ago, so perhaps did Apple remove the ability to set this in new versions of Airport Utility, or is it somewhere else I haven't been able to find?


    Thanks
    ...
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