Another Airport Express question.

[coleg]

I was wondering, will the airport express base station re-inforce (make stronger) a wireless signal that is non-Airport?

 

[mad jew]

It may extend a non-Airport base station (maybe, might need some hacking) but it certainly wont speed anything up because there will always be the bottleneck of the slower stations (802.11b?).

 

[Bear]

I was wondering, will the airport express base station re-inforce (make stronger) a wireless signal that is non-Airport?

Only if the base station in question supports WDS. And it doesn't reinforce it, it mere acts as a retransmission point for the data packets. WDS stands for Wireless Distribution System.

 

[coleg]

i just have at my house a dsl modem that the isp provided. it has a wireless antenna on it that provides wireless internet to our house. but it also has the ethernet port, which is connected to the main computer in the house (a dell).

i wanted to know if the airport express base station could make my signal stronger in my room (2 floors down).

 

[Bear]

i just have at my house a dsl modem that the isp provided. it has a wireless antenna on it that provides wireless internet to our house. but it also has the ethernet port, which is connected to the main computer in the house (a dell).

i wanted to know if the airport express base station could make my signal stronger in my room (2 floors down).

It depends on whether the wireless base supports WDS. If it doesn't, then an AirPort Express won't help.

You could always but an AirPort Extreme Base and use that instead of the wireless provided by the DSL Modem. (You would put this between the computer on the DSL Modem of course.)

 

[coleg]

Would you have any idea if a Quest DSL modem would have WDS?

I can always just try it when I'm home this summer. If not, the signal I get in my room still works well enough.

 

[Westside guy]

It's also worth noting that using a WDS essentially cuts your wireless speed in half per step because of all the traffic overhead associated with WDS. So if you've got an Express extending your network, and then another Express that's extending from THAT, your speed is cut by 4.

 

[hcuar]

I don't think the signal will be any "stronger"... That being said, certain products have better range than others. I think this basically applies to what brand of WiFi router you own. I use a Netgear router that gets great range and signal quality. I have a friend who has a Linksys router that doesn't do as well. If I remember correctly, I heard that the Airport basestations aren't the best for signal strength.