Airport Extreme and Airport Express. 802.11n speed?

[patrick0brien]

-All

Quick (and hopefully easy) question:

If I had an airport Express on a network served by an Airport Extreme, would that cause the Extreme to slow to 802.11g speeds?

 

[pianoman]

no. the Extreme has separate antennae for the b, g, and n protocols so no slowing down!

 

[patrick0brien]

-pianoman

In the words of Monty Burns: "Eeeeexcellent!"

 

[peterjhill]

no. the Extreme has separate antennae for the b, g, and n protocols so no slowing down!

This is not exactly true...

The airport express operates in b/g 2.4 GHz range.

The Airport Extreme N can operate in:

b/g/n 2.4 GHz
a/n 5 GHz

If you have both an AExp and an AExt connected via wired ethernet, you could consider configuring them with different network names (SSIDs) and operating the Extreme in A/N 5 GHz mode. This way the two airports will not interfere with one another.

If you are "extending" your wireless network (the two airports are not connected via wired ethernet) you need to operate in something that has at least b or g. Most likely you would set g as the common denominator.

If you want to keep your airports from interfering with each other, download some sort of wireless sniffer that can tell you channels used and power of wireless networks around you.. The only good channels in the 2.4 GHz range are 1, 6, and 11. The other channels overlap with these three. You would want your two airports to use two different channels.

Good luck

 

[patrick0brien]

-peterjhill

Rats.

I am using the extending paradigm here. Though my particular flavor is I'm using the Express to bridge to my printer.

Would it be possible to multicast? E.G. Have the g protocol to the Express, and the other antenna for n connections?

 

[peterjhill]

-peterjhill

Rats.

I am using the extending paradigm here. Though my particular flavor is I'm using the Express to bridge to my printer.

Would it be possible to multicast? E.G. Have the g protocol to the Express, and the other antenna for n connections?

It could have been possible if Apple did not think that would be too complicated for us users.. I don' t see why Apple could not have supported two different airport networks from one airport extreme..

It should not have been technically challenging for apple to allow the hardware to use the 2.4 GHz channel for one airport network and the 5 GHz network for another.. this would have allowed you to use 802.11g to extend your network with WDS and use the 5 GHz for a combined 802.11a/n network. They could have even done clever things to separate the two networks with a routed interface (different subnets) or bridge them together.

But then again, it is a <$200 AP, not a $1200 Cisco AP.

In all reality, where is your network congestion point? Even if you were only getting 10 - 20 Mbps on your wireless network, it is likely more than you are getting from your broadband connection... If you are using airdisk (I love the feature and have 3 drives connected to my base station) you will want to maximize your wireless speed. I guess your printer can't be moved to your airport extreme? Other options (that cost money and are probably not interesting) you could buy a refurbished airport extreme G from the apple store for $89 (for an express) or $99 (for an old extreme). Then connect the new airport (refurb) via wired ethernet to the airport extreme N base station and then set the 802.11n extreme to 5 GHz a/n mode and set up the WDS between the refurb'd airport and your express with the printer.

yuck, but it would work. I would use different network names so that you can tell which one you are connecting to.. I have Zero 7 and Zero 8 hehe

 

[patrick0brien]

Other options (that cost money and are probably not interesting) you could buy a refurbished airport extreme G from the apple store for $89 (for an express) or $99 (for an old extreme). Then connect the new airport (refurb) via wired ethernet to the airport extreme N base station and then set the 802.11n extreme to 5 GHz a/n mode and set up the WDS between the refurb'd airport and your express with the printer.

-peterjhill

Well, I already have an Extreme G, on the Wired network already to WDS with the Express, so we're almost there. Where I'd place the Extreme N actually has a hub right there as well.

I was wistfully hoping for a more elegant solution.

Oh, well. And yes, I like the NAS the Extreme gives - especially since CCC can do backups through the network - and I'm running Gigabit.