Airport/Airport Extreme

[BigBurd]

Please help. My friend has an older Powerbook and a new iBook. His Powerbook has an Airport card and base station. His iBook is Airport Extreme equipped. I know that an Airport Extreme base station can handle both cards, but it is expensive. What is a good base station (wireless router) alternative?

This wireless router should be able to be used with a PC, also. (He'd have to know what card to use with the PC, too.)

Thanks & God Bless.

BB

 

[jxyama]

any wireless-g router will work with both airport and airport extreme... though if you have even one 'b' card on the network, everything else, even 'g' cards, will work at b speed, afaik. so you might want to just use the existing airport base..?

 

[iJon]

since he has a pc that means setting up any station will be next to painless, so just go looking for your best deal and you will be set.

iJon

 

[Pilgrims Pro]

I have tried out four (thanks to Circuit City's new return policy) wireless G routers. I rank them in the following order.

1. Linksys
2. D-Link
3. NetGear
4. Belkin

I have a two PC Desktops and a G4 iBook (airport extreme), setup for both was very painless. The PC was plug and play and the iBook recongized the new network right away with each router.

Linksys---The range is awesome, about 60 feet and through two walls I have full signal strength. This is the one that I ended up keeping. The main reason why I chose this one over the D-Link and the Netgear was simply it worked better with my current 2.4 GHz cordless phone (Panasonic). I didn't have any problems with signal while using the phone and the phone was clear of static.

D-Link---Very nice router, the range was almost as strong as the Linksys, but the router significantly slowed down when using my cordless phone. I lost almost all of the strength of the signal and the phone had a lot of static.

Netgear---The range was very comparable to the Linksys if not slighty better, but almost everytime I used the phone the router would reboot causing me to lose the signal on both my wired and wireless connections. I tried two different Netgears, just to make the sure the first one wasn't the problem. Needless to say I had the same problem with the second. The times that is didn't reboot, the signal went way down and the phone had a lot of static.

Belkin---I don't recommend this to anyone wanting to use a wireless connection more than 20-25 feet away from the router. When I was close to the router it was perfect, no interference with the cordless phone either.

edit: BTW......All 802.11g routers should be backwards compatible with 802.11b. All of the routers mentioned above had options similar to g only, b only, or b and g.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

well, i think we are wondering if these two laptops will be used in drastically different locations.

because if they are in the same house, then only one base station/router is needed.

if it is being used in different places, then i highly reccomend netgear. linksys is a top brand but is expensive, you can get netgear (which is what i have, and LOVE) for really cheap (check eBay or Amazon).

hope that helps!

 

[Pilgrims Pro]

Originally posted by michaelrjohnson . linksys is a top brand but is expensive, you can get netgear (which is what i have, and LOVE) for really cheap (check eBay or Amazon).

hope that helps! [/B]

Linksys and Netgear 802.11g router/4 port switch are the same price $99.99. I don't think Linksys brand is any more expensive than Netgear or D-Link.

Belkin was the cheapest I bought, $99.99 -$30.00 (Mail in Rebate).