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Will Airport Express slow down an Airport Extreme network?

S

Steven Jackson

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hi,

I've just bought the Airport Extreme and will be using it to wirelessly connect an iMac to the Internet. I now have a left-over Airport Express. I'm thinking of putting it in the kitchen so that I can use AirTunes to stream music from the iMac...

However, if I do this, will it slow my network from N speeds to G speeds? If so, will the slowdown occur all the time, or only when I'm actively using Airport Express to stream the music?

This is all probably terribly basic, but I don't know a lot about networking...

Cheers,

Steve.
 
If you connect a B device to an existing G net, the speed in the entire G network will downscale to B speed.

Apple states that "Speed and range will be less if an 802.11a/b/g product joins the [N] network". But I don't know how far down it will scale. I guess (or rather hope) that the N standard (or pre-N) is a bit more intelligent than the G standard was, but I'm not sure I'll bother reading the N draft just to find out... 😉

Anybody out there actually read the N draft?
 
Does this apply if you have your New Airport Broadcasting N at 5 ghz, and you have your airport express w/AT hanging off the back broadcasting b/g in bridge mode?
 
That's what I did. Plug your airport express in via ethernet, setup bridge mode, and have a dual-band network to get the maximum speeds for all of your devices.
 
NightStorm said:
That's what I did. Plug your airport express in via ethernet, setup bridge mode, and have a dual-band network to get the maximum speeds for all of your devices.
Click to expand...

K thanks Night Storm, one last question. what would happen if you unplugged your AEw/AT would it only be used to broadcast music to a audio device or could u set it up as a repeater and just broadcast b/g?
 
I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you are asking. If you mean unplug the ethernet cable, then you would have to reset the Airport Extreme to be b/g/n compatible, and you'd cut your n-speeds in half.
 
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