Bridging for extended range

[BuzWeaver]

A very common question I get from clients is, how can they extend an existing Airport Extreme Base Station (old model) to get extended range. I know that bridging is possible, however can someone give me a simple outline of how this is accomplished?

The typical scenario is someone has either a Linksys router or an old Airport Extreme Base Station and they want to have internet access from one end of their large house to another room (or basement), workshops or mother in law suites near their home. Naturally this isn't to much of an issue with the new N capable macs with a new Airport Extreme Base Station, however since wireless is become a 'fad' I'm getting this question a lot more often.

 

[mad jew]

There's no set standard for extending a wireless range. Different companies have released different means for this to happen. In Apple's case it's called WDS and is administered through the AirPort Admin Utility. It's really quite easy to set up. The catch is that generally only an Apple AirPort base station can extend the range of another AirPort. Note that some people have managed to hack certain Linksys models to also extend AirPorts. Also note that almost any base station can join an existing wireless network but will probably not actually extend the range unless the two base stations are compatible.

 

[BuzWeaver]

Excellent! Thanks so much!!

 

[mad jew]

No worries mate. The key's sticking to like-branded components.