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Airport extreme

U

usefz89

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2013
12
0
Hi guys ,
I just wanna know if its worth to buy an airport extreme for a Low speed DSL connection (6 megabit) to increase wifi Coverage And make internet speed more stable in my home.

i tried alot of solutions like extenders but nothing worked
 
rosario1990 said:
Before going to buy this you should ask your neighbour what he's using. I think with will be the best solution.
Click to expand...

I believe you are assuming that the OP is piggybacking off of someone, and that's awfully presumptuous and not helpful at all to the OP.

Anyhow, on the point to the OP...

Can you give us an idea of what you currently have in place? What router is currently serving your home? Is it a router/modem combination you get from your provider? And, are you seeing dead spots in areas of the home or just terrible speeds everywhere? Have you tried tweaking the current router settings (such as channel, 2.4 vs 5ghz)?
 
@rosario I dodnt follow what do you mean

@ jdag I have modem/ router cisco linksys x3500 and yes my biggest problem with it is i have alot of dead areas in my home although for example my room its not far away from the router. btw this is not my first router o buy to solve this problem
Thank you
 
The Linksys X3500 looks to be both a DSL modem as well as a router, so an "all-in-one" unit. Are you "renting" that from your Internet provider or did you buy it? Also, do you happen to have a separate modem that you are not using (either one you bought or one you rec'd from your provider)?

Here are several options:

1) Get an additional router and set up in bridge mode to extend the wireless signal that the X3500 is producing. I did some really basic searches and it appears the X3500 supports this. You should be able to accomplish this with a variety of routers, so cost is pretty minimal. You'll want to do research on models to be sure what will work, but it doesn't have to be another Linksys.

2) Similar to #1 above, get a 2nd router but connect the 2 routers via ethernet cable.

3) Add a dedicated extender. There are small wall plug units that do nothing but extend and can be found for about $30-$40.

4) Get a new DSL modem and a new router with better signal strength. (You might then also be able to use the X3500 as an extender for that new router.) If you are going this route, you can then consider the Apple Airport Extreme router or Time Capsules which are very reliable, offer strong signals, and are easily extendable using Airport Extreme units.

5) Add power line network units to your home. You would still then need to add wireless to the other end or plug devices into the power line adapter via ethernet.

I am sure there are more ways. The good news is anything above can be done for as little as about $30, but upwards of several hundred depending on the hardware you need/want.

I think you will find that #4 above is what many people on this site use (including me). Works perfectly throughout my home (2,500 square feet, 3 floors including the finished basement).
 
Jdag thank you very for much for your reply.
Yes I bought the cisco from myself and I already using a bridge router but these solutions are not that reliable maybe it's works when you have like a garden and you need your wifi to reach but for every hour use not so much
So maybe I'll stick with solution #4
 
the airport express is better for your scenario. and its 5ghz band too and throws a large signal area. I just got one for my modest 15 down / 2 up and its great.
 
I use one Airport Extreme and two Airport Expresses to extend the wifi coverage to the extremities at my home.

I have two main reasons for choosing Airports to do this:
1) Airports have pretty strong signals and penetrate to most hard to reach areas better than many other access points that I've tried before.
2) The ability to extend the wifi coverage and create a roaming network is very easy. With the old Airport Utility program (5.6.1) there was a "Allow this network to be extended" check box on the wireless settings. The new Airport Utility (6.3.5) does this automatically. Basically it allows one to extend the coverage area by using as many Airports Express units as needed. This creates a roaming network with one SSID and allows you to walk from one spot to another without an interruption.

There may be other routers with the ability to create a roaming network but Airports are very easy to setup and are mostly trouble free.

My suggestion would be to use an Airport Extreme for NAT, DHCP and port forwarding and extend the coverage for dead spots with additional Airport Expresses. Or, if you are using your modem to do the NAT, DHCP and port forwarding, then you can save money by using only the Airport Express(s).
 
bingeciren said:
I use one Airport Extreme and two Airport Expresses to extend the wifi coverage to the extremities at my home.

I have two main reasons for choosing Airports to do this:
1) Airports have pretty strong signals and penetrate to most hard to reach areas better than many other access points that I've tried before.
2) The ability to extend the wifi coverage and create a roaming network is very easy. With the old Airport Utility program (5.6.1) there was a "Allow this network to be extended" check box on the wireless settings. The new Airport Utility (6.3.5) does this automatically. Basically it allows one to extend the coverage area by using as many Airports Express units as needed. This creates a roaming network with one SSID and allows you to walk from one spot to another without an interruption.

There may be other routers with the ability to create a roaming network but Airports are very easy to setup and are mostly trouble free.

My suggestion would be to use an Airport Extreme for NAT, DHCP and port forwarding and extend the coverage for dead spots with additional Airport Expresses. Or, if you are using your modem to do the NAT, DHCP and port forwarding, then you can save money by using only the Airport Express(s).
Click to expand...

By setting the modem to bridge mode? Will the modem and AEBS LAN ports all be useable?
 
tdale said:
By setting the modem to bridge mode? Will the modem and AEBS LAN ports all be useable?
Click to expand...

Generally I use my adsl modem in bridge mode (adsl modem not the AE). That way, the modem acts as an intermediary between the internet connection to the outside world and the Airport Extreme. I leave all port forwarding, DHCP assignments and reservations to the AE.

However, in order to use the network traffic software of my modem, I also tried to leave the adsl modem in NAT only mode (DHCP off) and delegated the DHCP to the AE (DHCP only mode). This also proved to be a workable alternative.

Either way, AEBS LAN ports are always useable since they are behind the NAT, and on the LAN side. Modem ports are also useable and in fact one of them is used to connect the modem to the AE WAN port, however the rest of the modem ports are not much of a use except to set up the modem, if needed, by connecting to it with a static IP assignment.
 
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