AirPort Extreme upgrade query

[macman4789]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of upgrading my wireless router and considering a new 6th gen AirPort Extreme base considering all our devices are Mac.

I've heard due to the extra antennas etc the wireless performance greatly improves when using this router and so my question is will it still improve even though all my devices except my iPhone 6 plus are 802.11 n? And the base station supports the faster ac? Anybody had any experience?

Thanks

 

[Altemose]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of upgrading my wireless router and considering a new 6th gen AirPort Extreme base considering all our devices are Mac.

I've heard due to the extra antennas etc the wireless performance greatly improves when using this router and so my question is will it still improve even though all my devices except my iPhone 6 plus are 802.11 n? And the base station supports the faster ac? Anybody had any experience?

Thanks

The AirPort Extreme is a great router! I use one at home and at school to run the network of 140 clients across the whole network. I never have to reboot or even think about it. It does feature beam forming which does help with the coverage to improve it over previous generations. Based off of my experience and the experience of others, the new AirPort Extreme does offer slightly better results for wireless N clients. Since this is a dual band router, you can use AC-compliant clients and N-compliant clients simoultaneously without issue.

 

[macman4789]

Thanks for the reply. So does it being dual band mean I could get AC speeds with my iPhone 6 and then other equipment can connect at N speeds without them slowing down the network on my 5Ghz frequency?

Thanks

 

[Altemose]

Thanks for the reply. So does it being dual band mean I could get AC speeds with my iPhone 6 and then other equipment can connect at N speeds without them slowing down the network on my 5Ghz frequency?

Thanks

Yes. The slower clients do not affect the faster clients.

 

[macman4789]

Thanks for your reply again. Last few questions I think:

Can you create a guest network? I know you can with the express.

Lastly question, I'm right in thinking the extreme doesn't have a built in modem? So would I basically change my current modem/router into just modem mode and plug the extreme into that?

Thanks again

 

[Altemose]

Thanks for your reply again. Last few questions I think:

Can you create a guest network? I know you can with the express.

Lastly question, I'm right in thinking the extreme doesn't have a built in modem? So would I basically change my current modem/router into just modem mode and plug the extreme into that?

Thanks again

Yes. You can create a separate guest network which will get strictly Internet access. You would put the modem into bridge mode and simply plug it into the Extreme's WAN port.

 

[netnothing]

I'll chime in to say I just replaced a 4th gen Airport Extreme with the new 6th gen and it does have much better performance and range than my 4th gen. So much so that I decided not to re-add my 4th gen on the other side of the house because I was actually getting faster speeds, even farther away on the 6th gen than the 4th gen right in the room.

-Kevin