What fun can I add with Airport Extreme?

Just remember when putting a router behind another router. Only the device that is closet to the ISP modem should be doing NAT. In the Airport settings you can just go to 'Edit' and the 'Network' mini-tab and turn set it ti "Bridged Mode". This will turn off NAT in an Apple router.

For the other router if you hook to your Extreme you should go into the Netgear's setup and turn of NAT.

jwjsr said:

Somehow I figured to do what u said about the NAT but I am not using the net gear at all. Unless advised differently I guess I will sell it. I have AExtreme behind the 6+ yr old non wifi westell Modem I mentioned above, I hope it is not a bottleneck?

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Before getting UVerse, I had one of those Westell modems, and connected my Airport Extreme directly to it. The AE performed all NAT and DHCP nicely.

No, there should be no bottleneck with your setup. The DSL connections that the Westell modems produce usually have a maximum speed well below the transfer speeds of the AE.

Don't sell the Netgear just yet, though. You could use it as a WiFi bridge/range extender, on the rare chance that an area in your residence in which your WiFi signal from the AE is very low. Or use it as a WiFi bridge/switch for a small multiplayer gaming setup; it would be an easy way to facilitate Internet connection to an old-school LAN party, if paired with a higher-capacity Ethernet switch.

id sell off the netgear and if you need a good extender especially with dual-band pick-up an AirPort Express. handy great devices.

if possible upgrade the modem that can received better Up/Down and throughput to the routers.

will have a nice solid connection set-up should your ISP be consistent and have good signal sent to your modem

jwjsr said:

Thanks, Are y'all advising that my 6+ year old Westell A90 wirespeed modem may not be providing me with maximum internet speed? I have att 6mbps service now. If so could you recommend a new modem>keeping in mind it will be connected to the Airport Extreme?

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Funny you should mention this, as my Westell modem/Airport Extreme setup was also 6 Mbps DSL through AT&T.

AT&T's FastAccess DSL service, while very reliable thanks to the solid performance of the Westell modem (IMHO), maxes out at 6 Mbps-- only barely fast enough for NetFlix SD content during peak usage periods (forget about streaming HD). AT&T has moved on from DSL to its UVerse service for Internet speeds above 6 Mbps; UVerse uses a different modem/gateway, the 2Wire.

Don't get me wrong, your connection between devices in your house (such as via an iTunes WiFi sync) are dictated by the Airport Extreme's speed which is much higher. But none of them will receive data from the Internet faster than 6 Mbps with the infrastructure you have. I have a feeling that, eventually, DSL will go the way of dialup/56K service, i.e. available only to those customers in rural areas where it's not economically feasible for AT&T to deploy UVerse.