help with wireless network for home theater

[jimmy1984]

I am trying to figure out what I should do about networking...

We have AT&T DSL and I could get either the Wireless Gateway or just a Modem. If I get the modem, I plan on getting the AEBS (maybe hook up an external harddrive for backups)

On the network I want to run an iMac, iPod touch, Macbook, and possibly in the future an AppleTV (or a Mini Mac...but I dont see getting the go ahead nod for that one)

I have used at&t's gateway before. When my wife and I would both be logged on, inevitably one of us would get booted from the internet (this was before be both started using Macs)...does this sound like an at&t gateway issue?

Thanks for any insight...

[d21mike]

I like just using the Modem and getting a good 802.11n Router. When I setup my daughters DSL I set the modem/router to passthru (do not remember the exact setup) so I could use my own router. I like the Linksys Routers because I know them inside and out.

If you get a good Router you should be able to setup all of your wireless devices and they should all work properly. For some of my devices I prefer to have the router set a particular ip address for each device. For example, I like to connect to my desktop from a remote location so I have the router set the ip address for my desktop so that I can port forward easily for that purpose. Some have reported problems with the Apple TV dropping connection from iTunes but when they have the router set the ip address (instead of dynamic) then the problem went away. For Linksys you tell it the MAC ADDRESS of the device and the static ip address you want to assign. So when it ask for an ip address it always gets the same one.