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QFace

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 19, 2003
100
16
Calgary, AB
Hello everybody,
I was hoping for some advice on a wireless setup for my housing next year.
I'll be living in an apartment w/ five people (including me). We'll be getting comcast high speed cable internet. I currently have an airport express, so we'll probably hook that up and plug the audio out into our main audio system. I was going to buy another airport express and extend the network (mostly so I can use the audio out to plug into a stereo system in my own room, and so we can have a color inkjet plugged into one airport express and a laser printer plugged into the other). How does the network extension work... will it lower the performance of the network? Also, how will the airport express fair handling five users? I know it can handle up to 10 users, but I am still a little worried. Also, if I am extending the network with another airport express, can the network then handle 20 clients, or am I still limited to 10.
Thanks,
Andrew
 
QFace said:
Hello everybody,
I was hoping for some advice on a wireless setup for my housing next year.
I'll be living in an apartment w/ five people (including me). We'll be getting comcast high speed cable internet. I currently have an airport express, so we'll probably hook that up and plug the audio out into our main audio system. I was going to buy another airport express and extend the network (mostly so I can use the audio out to plug into a stereo system in my own room, and so we can have a color inkjet plugged into one airport express and a laser printer plugged into the other). How does the network extension work... will it lower the performance of the network? Also, how will the airport express fair handling five users? I know it can handle up to 10 users, but I am still a little worried. Also, if I am extending the network with another airport express, can the network then handle 20 clients, or am I still limited to 10.

A WDS ("extending the system") will impact total network performance, since the two (or more) nodes have to communicate - but the network will still be much faster than your upstream connection through the cable modem. I doubt you'll notice.

Our Airport Express has handled 5-6 users at times with no issues.

This last answer is an educated guess. I would think that a WDS would not increase the total number of users your system can handle - so you'd be stuck with 10 max.
 
Thanks for the answer... if anybody else thinks another setup might suit me better, and is not significantly more expensive, please comment. Thanks.
 
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