Airport Extreme Networking

[Omnius]

I live on a college campus and their wireless network is horrid. I have multiple computers and an iphone. I would like reliable internet. The ethernet connection here is a bit more reliable, though not amazing.

I was thinking that the best way to resolve this issue was to put in a router of my own. However, I have questions.

Can I set my computers to file share only to those computers connected to my router? i.e.: they must be connected to my network rather than the school's network?

I ask because if I purchase an airport extreme, I could connect a hard drive or printer to it and I'd like to keep those things for my network, rather than share them with others.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes, that is the default configuration.

 

[Omnius]

Is there a non apple brand alternative? Perhaps a comparably specced router that has a usb 3.0 port. Are there any expected features for a 6th generation extreme that would justify waiting? Is the current model, somewhat obsolete?

Also, how difficult is it setup a printer on the ethernet connection rather than the USB connection?

 

[Omnius]

My other question is this.

Would identical users on different machines cause an issue?

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there a non apple brand alternative? Perhaps a comparably specced router that has a usb 3.0 port. Are there any expected features for a 6th generation extreme that would justify waiting? Is the current model, somewhat obsolete?

Also, how difficult is it setup a printer on the ethernet connection rather than the USB connection?

Sure... there are many other routers with USB printing or USB drive support. This site has pretty thorough reviews and might be helpful.

The next thing on the horizon for routers is the new AC wifi standard. Given no Apple client devices support the standard yet, I think it will be quite a while before you see a new Apple router supporting this standard. USB 3.0 is not of much value on a router and the network speeds can't really take advantage of the increased speed of USB 3.0. I think the current Airport Extreme will be with us at least until mid year 2013 when we start to see AC wifi devices.

My other question is this.

Would identical users on different machines cause an issue?

Not sure what you mean by identical users? If a machine of the same name is detected, say two machines named "Jones Macbook", one of them will be renamed "Jones Macbook1" automatically. Not a problem.

 

[Omnius]

Sure... there are many other routers with USB printing or USB drive support. This site has pretty thorough reviews and might be helpful.

I asked how easy/difficult it was to set up a printer on an ethernet port, not the usb port.

The next thing on the horizon for routers is the new AC wifi standard. Given no Apple client devices support the standard yet, I think it will be quite a while before you see a new Apple router supporting this standard. USB 3.0 is not of much value on a router and the network speeds can't really take advantage of the increased speed of USB 3.0. I think the current Airport Extreme will be with us at least until mid year 2013 when we start to see AC wifi devices.

Why wouldn't connections through ethernet make use of the faster USB 3.0?

And, essentially only new products will make any real use out of a newer model airport extreme?

 

[zhenya]

I asked how easy/difficult it was to set up a printer on an ethernet port, not the usb port.

Why wouldn't connections through ethernet make use of the faster USB 3.0?

And, essentially only new products will make any real use out of a newer model airport extreme?

The difficulty of setting up a networked printer via Ethernet completely depends on the specific devices you are hooking up. I'm a pretty experienced Network Engineer and while most network printers are easy for me to configure, I've had some (namely HP) that I could never get to work properly.

Many current routers have USB ports, but the nature of them is that they are very slow, typically 5-10 megabytes/second (less than 100 megabits) speeds. Since this is well below the capacity of USB2, there is no advantage to a USB3 port.

Your own router is a good idea, but I would make sure your school does not have a policy against them before spending the money.