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darraghsmyth

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2004
25
0
London, UK
Before I order my 12" PB :D, I have a few questions concerning the Airport Extreme Base Station:

- Does it facilitate multiple users simultaneously, i.e. is there a router built in to the box, as well as the wireless antenae?

- If so, how many users can be facilitated at once?

- Does it have additional ethernet and/or USB ports to connect to your machine, if you wanted an assured solid signal?

ta
d
 

Horrortaxi

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2003
2,240
0
Los Angeles
I think the limit is 50 users at a time.

It does have 2 ethernet ports, so you can wire a computer (or a switch or a router) to it. It has 1 USB poprt, which only works for printing.
 

mactastic

macrumors 68040
Apr 24, 2003
3,681
665
Colly-fornia
Horrortaxi said:
I think the limit is 50 users at a time.

It does have 2 ethernet ports, so you can wire a computer (or a switch or a router) to it. It has 1 USB poprt, which only works for printing.

The limit is indeed 50 users, but there is only ONE useable ethernet port. There are two ports back there, but one is the WAN port that you have to plug your internet connection into. The other can be used for your LAN, but if you want to hook up more than one computer physically you'll need a switch of some kind.
 

Horrortaxi

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2003
2,240
0
Los Angeles
mactastic said:
The limit is indeed 50 users, but there is only ONE useable ethernet port. There are two ports back there, but one is the WAN port that you have to plug your internet connection into. The other can be used for your LAN, but if you want to hook up more than one computer physically you'll need a switch of some kind.
Isn't that what I said? I guess I wasn't too clear.
 

mactastic

macrumors 68040
Apr 24, 2003
3,681
665
Colly-fornia
Horrortaxi said:
Isn't that what I said? I guess I wasn't too clear.
Sorry, I wasn't sure if you were getting the AE mixed up with the older base stations which did have two LAN ports so I figured I'd clarify for the original poster.
 

cyks

macrumors 68020
Jul 24, 2002
2,090
8
Westchester County, NY
There's only 1 LAN port on the AEBS? That answers my "which should I buy" question rather quickly.... even 2 would be tough (but more managable) since i don't intend on buying Airport cards for all of my computers/ game consoles/ etc...
I guess I'll be taking a harder look at either the D-Link or Netgear models (I've read good things about both on here).
 

PlanB

macrumors member
Mar 9, 2004
76
0
ok so does this mean that i can hook my mums emac up via ethernet but still have powerbook wireless (i dont want to buy a ae card for the emac)

cheers
 

crazzyeddie

macrumors 68030
Dec 7, 2002
2,792
1
Florida, USA
cyks said:
There's only 1 LAN port on the AEBS? That answers my "which should I buy" question rather quickly.... even 2 would be tough (but more managable) since i don't intend on buying Airport cards for all of my computers/ game consoles/ etc...
I guess I'll be taking a harder look at either the D-Link or Netgear models (I've read good things about both on here).

You can hook another hub or switch up to that 1 LAN port. The Airport base station will assign IPs to all machines connected to that LAN port, even via another hub.
 

cyks

macrumors 68020
Jul 24, 2002
2,090
8
Westchester County, NY
...it would just seem weird to buy a AEBS....and still have to use my current router so I can hook everything up at once.

...especially when I could spend only a 1/4 of the price- buy a PC equivilant and use it to hook up everything.

...just not as pretty as the AEBS :)
 
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