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richard4339

macrumors 6502a
Sep 6, 2006
891
108
Illinois
are you serious? how much is your electric bills? i have 2 computers, 2 printers, 1 router, 2 speaker set, one refrigerator, one central air conditioner, and other small things on 24/7 and my bill in the SUMMER is only like 30USD/month

You must be pretty lucky. I have less than you, and usually end up paying between $70 and $90
 

mikeyrogers

macrumors member
Apr 27, 2004
63
0
Santa Monica, CA
Add On Card?

Do you all think Apple is considering an add on N card for us early MBP adopters? I know we can't take out the old card because Apple no longer allows us to upgrade (like we could on the PB) the wireless card, but they could still utlize the Express54 slot, no? Do you all think Core Duo guys are SOL when it comes to N or will someone (hopefully Apple) give us an option to upgrade?
 

Chef Medeski

macrumors 6502a
Jun 14, 2005
975
0
New York, NY
That's not how I read the fine print.



It could be that just the lower speed device has a lower speed. But I read that as "if a lower spec device joins the network then the higher spec is disabled." Some old ethernet hubs used to work this way.

I would think if only the slower device had slower throughput then the phrasing would be more like "Speed and range will be less for an 802.11a/b/g product that joins the network"

Come on guys grammar. Spped and range will be less for a product. See... it will be less for a product that joins the networks. A PRODUCT. Not Speed and Range will be less on the whole network when an 802.11a/b/g product joins. And I do know this cause this is how n works if you would give it two seconds to look up. N and pre-N are standards meaning that linksys' N router works the same as Apples. Even though one may have added features, the basic wireless capablities are the same. And the abilites dont decrease just ebcause another device joins the network. So, not only has this been proven false on other networks. Proven false by GRAMMAR. But it doesnt make any sense. So back up your friends all you want, then they won't buy a fabulous product. Fine less of a line up when I buy
 

Rower_CPU

Moderator emeritus
Oct 5, 2001
11,219
2
San Diego, CA
Reminder

This is the Airport Extreme thread. Comments re: the iPhone and Apple TV that don't relate to connecting via the base station are off topic and will be removed.

Please see the iPhone and Apple TV threads for discussion of those announcements.
 

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,183
3,343
Pennsylvania
I'm really disappointed in a lack of Firewire. that's the technology which Apple helped invent, it's the fastest.. and oh, wait. if there's not gig-E, who cares about speed. It's all about price now, and profit margins :mad:

Today, Apple Computer died, and with it went the RDF.

:'(
 

DickArmAndHarT

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2004
261
0
Perfect. I just ordered one. Wish it shipped before Feb, but it'll be worth it if it's Apple TV ready. All I'll need now is to order an external USB hard disk, hook it up to the airport extreme router, and I'm time-machine ready - on both my iMac and PowerBook.

Nice!

Now thats gnarlyy!
 

Protoplasm

macrumors newbie
Mar 7, 2006
8
0
UK
Makes sense. Isolate the gigE part of the network on its own switch, and then have this for wireless. Don't need gigE for printer sharing or network storage or the WAN port . . . And if you need gigE, you probably have more than three nodes anyway.

Doesn't make sense to me.

With 802.11n you've got the potential to go beyond 100mbit speeds.

So, in your scenario, my 1gbit cabled mini cannot stream data as fast as can be received a wireless 802.11n device on the network.

Which strikes me as madness, given how they've just introduced the AppleTV product which is 802.11n draft-spec'd.

I'd love this if it were gigabit ethernet. As it is, I'll probably look to the Linksys when it's released.
 

flir67

macrumors 6502
Jun 23, 2005
256
0
doesn't this suggest this new airport could be a linksys in disguise so apple could use the iphone name.

apple always has included gig-e on all their new computers, I hope this doesn't comeback to bit them in the a**.

nothing of today has made sense on apples part.
 

dornoforpyros

macrumors 68040
Oct 19, 2004
3,070
4
Calgary, AB
meh it's still not a router/switch, thus making it nothing more than an overpriced wireless access point, and thus, I still don't care.

Although it'll be nice when my C2D MBP can do wireless N

Edit, oh wait, what's this, now i have to buy your under featured access point to even use my wireless card to it's full potential? lame apple, really f***in lame
 

Bregalad

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2002
434
69
Vancouver
I'm really disappointed in a lack of Firewire. that's the technology which Apple helped invent, it's the fastest.. and oh, wait. if there's not gig-E, who cares about speed. It's all about price now, and profit margins :mad:

Today, Apple Computer died, and with it went the RDF.

:'(

I second that emotion, but in order to provide a port that can be used for hard drives and printers it had to be USB. Apple seriously dropped the ball by demanding royalties on FireWire before the technology had even started to catch on. Like many here I'm puzzled why the Ethernet is limited to 10/100.

Currently the new base station carries a 20-30% price premium over other pre-n routers, which I'll gladly pay for Apple reliability, compatibility and the AirPort Disk feature. My home network is only 10/100 and I still use an original AirPort base station because it's fast enough for internet, but it will be really nice to have a high speed wireless network because it's currently faster for large file transfers to carry my laptop to the basement, copy files over FireWire or Ethernet, and carry it back upstairs than to get it directly off my network.
 

xenotaku

macrumors regular
Aug 30, 2005
246
0
quick but important message

I am going to order one of the new base stations, but will my airport express still work as a range booster? Will it still be able to pick up the airport extreme signal and boost it for larger network range or will this not work anymore because the new one is N?


and why does Linksys claim their wireless N router gives off 4X the range where the new apple one is only 2X?
 

twinworld

macrumors newbie
Jan 9, 2007
1
0
no firewire port

Definitely like the hard drive sharing capability, but no firewire port???

i'm disappointed too. I'm looking for a server or a server/HD which doesn't cost more than 200-500$. I can't find any product with USB port and Firewire port, except LaCie server that costs about 1100$.

As I read in another post, Apple supports Firewire connectics and forgets it on his own product. It's sad.
 

weldon

macrumors 6502a
May 22, 2004
642
0
Denver, CO
Gig-E is really missing when you consider the NAS features of Airport Disk. I'd like to be able to use that on gigabit ethernet and not just 10/100 or wireless.
 

stephenmckeague

macrumors member
Sep 5, 2006
40
0
Power over ethernet?

Was the power over ethernet feature removed?? I can't find it listed in the specs so I can only assume it was :(
 

ShermDog

macrumors regular
Mar 15, 2004
106
1
Chicago
I would have preferred multiple USB ports rather than multiple LAN ports. And gigabit ethernet would have made this perfect.

Too bad these new base stations aren't modular, or customizable (with punch-outs). There seems to be a lot of empty space on the back, and it would be nice to have as many LAN or USB ports as can fit (based on user preference)
 

Huracan

macrumors 6502
Jan 9, 2007
336
281
I am still hoping that Apple will later come up with a Gig-E version for some extra money. I think one of the rumors was about X2 / X4 Airport Express. Perhaps there is a X4 version coming up later. The way it is I wouldn't buy it. I have passed on buying any 100Mbit network storage, why would I shell $179 for a network storage solution that only provides 100Mbit connectivity to the network. It would seem like enough bandwidth, but I am pretty sure one will think differently when trying to move large video files across. Other than that, it doesn't make sense to me to have the wireless capacity so much bigger than the wire capacity.

Furthermore, pretty much all current Macs, or all of them (I haven't done the research) have Gigabit Ethernet ports, it would be nice to have a switch that can let them talk to each other at that speed. Before the age of video 100Mbit was good enough, even for most broadband Internet a 10Mbit would still be fine, barely, but with video 1Gigabit is about what's needed.

I am myself not in a rush, so I'll wait to see if Apple comes up with a Gig-E version of the base station, or if I get tired of waiting and decide to make the jump I'll consider Linksys or Netgear. However, before doing this I'd like to be sure I can update the software in my Mac to enable the draft-n capability and that this is compatible with Linksys/Netgear. I hope the enabler software becomes public after a while, it would be pretty lame for Apple to tie it completely to buying the base station. It could also be that the draft-n cards present in the latest Macs are not compatible with Linksys/Netgear, but I'd really doubt it.

Summing up. We'll have to wait a month or two for things to settle and know what can be done with our Macs when it comes to draft-n.

PS: If you don't plan to keep a separate g and n networks or do not have all the devices able to do wireless n then the performance will suffer when a wireless g device joins your network. This has been pointed in several other posts.
 

konquererkarlos

macrumors newbie
Aug 29, 2006
8
0
anyone thought about the possibility of a cheap mac mini out of one of these things? anyone know how much ram it has? all it would need (i think) is a usb hub that's connected to a mouse, keyboard and external dvd drive... so for like $350 you can get a complete system (minus of course the lcd tv you'd be using and the price of mac OS X itself)
 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
yea, considering all new macs ship with gig-E

Don't forget Apple should have starting going to 10 gig-E on the Pro desktop machines and servers by now. ;)

Of course Apple is a bit like Ford in some things, trump the new fangled looks and a couple new features -- and hope that the consumer doesn't notice that the "all new"/"refreshed" device/vehicle is falling behind the rest of the market.
 

flopticalcube

macrumors G4
In reality, how much faster can USB 2.0 go than 802.11n? Theoretically 480Mbps, in practice more like 240Mbps max. This is close to the theoretical throughput of 802.11n. In practice, it still may be fairly close. Given this limit on the USB drive, it is small wonder Apple didn't include Gbit ether. And since they were not going to deliver that, no need for adding FW400/FW800 either, since the limiting factor would be 802.11n. If buying a drive for this new router, I would go for a dual interface USB/FW. Use the USB for casual wireless access and use the FW for backups.
 

JeffDM

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2006
709
10
Buy a cheap b/g router and hook it up to the APExt. Two networks: one fast, one slow.

That's not a total fix. I think "n" uses the entire 1-13 spectrum in one gulp. The use of a separate "g" network will still be seen as interference by the "n" devices.

but it's like 600 mbit.....without wires! (correct me if i'm wrong)

i'm kinda excited about it's release

600mbit, which I think is the theoretical max rate, cut that to less than half for practical speed, and it's also half-duplex. And then there's range and interference issues.
 
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