Airport extreme base station as router???

[chrisob]

Hi all,
Just bought an Airport Extreme from Apple. Is there anyway I can use it instead of my existing netopia router. I'm getting mixed reports on whether I can do it. The AEBS appears to be able to take a dsl line. Please help

 

[coopermac]

Connect the Extremes WAN port to the LAN port of your DSL modem and you can configure the Extreme to either join your existing network or set up a new network using the Extreme as the Base Station to connect both wirelessly or via ethernet to your other devices.

Take a look at the links on this page for help:

http://www.apple.com/uk/support/airport/

 

[chrisob]

If I create a new network will that replace my existing wireless network or what? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question but networking isn't my thing. Cheers

 

[coopermac]

You can either join your existing network and allow your original router to control everything or use the airport software and base station settings to create a new network. Assuming you have the new AEBS you can create wireless networks using variations of wireless protocols e.g 802.11a/b/g, 2.4Ghz n only, 5 Ghz n only or 2.4 n with g compatibility.

All the possibilities are listed in the Apple documentation for the AEBS and on line.

 

[chrisob]

think I have my head gotten around it now. after much research. lol. thanks very much for your help

 

[skorpien]

I think you're getting your terms confused. The AEBS is a router, but it is not a modem. The Netopia device you have is most probably a modem and a router combined. What you can do with your AEBS is set it to Bridge Mode and have the Netopia modem/router do the DHCP. This will allow you to create a separate network with your AEBS, but since it will be on the same subnet as your other network, it'll be just like having one huge network with multiple wireless access points.

Check out page 48 of this manual Apple provides. It will tell you how to set up Bridge Mode (and a dual band network; very useful in my opinioin). It uses only AirPort Base Stations as an example, but it will still work with a 3rd party router as the primary router.

 

[yojitani]

As skopien says. If you can get it working in bridging mode, I find the airport much easier to manage than most of the crap you get from internet providers.

 

[chrisob]

thanks to yer posts i finally figured it out. have the AEBS broadcasting on 802.11 n. thanks very much for all yer help again