can i network like this?

[00hkelly]

I have searched around and have been unable to soundly answer my question, excuse me if it may seem obvious.

at the moment i have a belkin router which does not cut through my house as it is very old and the walls are made of thick stone. would i be able to replace my belkin wireless router straight with an airport express or do i need a dsl modem like that which was supplied when we bought the internet connection(i really dont know as much as i should about wireless networking). sorry for being so vague its just unclear whether i can simply replace my existing router with an express and then get another express to extend the network or will i need extras to replace the belkin.
thanks

 

[mkrishnan]

So you have a Belkin now, and you want to replace it with an Airport Express. You can do that, as long as there are no *wired* devices networked onto the Belkin (the Airport has no wired ports). But unless the Belkin is an 802.11b device (instead of 802.11g), don't expect too much range improvement.

The other thing is that, if the Belkin *is* 802.11g, you might just be able to put the Airport somewhere in between the computers and the Belkin, and try to get it to join / extend the Belkin network. This way, it will extend the range of the Belkin, and you will get better coverage throughout the house than you will with just the Airport in the location where the Belkin is now.

 

[00hkelly]

thanks for your reply, its good to know that i can do a straight swap, however i thought that you could only extend a network of an airport extreme (have read something somewhere about a linksys router) however extending the range of my router is something which i am also interested in.
ps. i live in the UK the router is a Belkin Asdl modem/wireless router which is plugged into the wall and into 1 computer it has a further 2 computers connected to it wirelessly over 802.11g
thanks,
Hugo

 

[mkrishnan]

If the Belkin is a modem + router, you then definitely cannot just swap it -- sorry. From your statement I assumed it was a router hooked up to a modem. I forget that people use things like this in the UK (I understand that they're common with BT customers, but they are not common in the US).

Two options:

1) You can certainly turn off the wireless in the Belkin and/or plug the Airport directly into one of its wired ports. You will need the Belkin in any event because it is acting as your modem (unless you replace it).

2) I don't completely understand this part, because I too remember that Apple docs say that Airports only extend networks rooted by other Airports. However, it actually also happens to work with any other wireless router that supports WDS. Your Belkin may or may not... See this article, for instance.

What I would recommend is that you can get the AE, try it first to extend the network with WDS. If that does not work, then plug it into a wired port of the Belkin, and that should definitely work, although you may need a second one to WDS off the first one.

 

[Tarkovsky]

THE AIRPORT HAS A WIRED ETHERNET PORT.

You can set it up as a WDS as well, as I wouldn't say it packs a lot of extra range over many other routers. A WDS connects wirelessly to the old router and transmits the signal further...

 

[00hkelly]

i see, thanks for all the info, i think bt gave us a modem when we signed up so i will be able to use that, i will probs get one and see if it works, in our house we need more than one lonely router to get full coverage anyway so i am sure something can be worked out. i hope they re-release the airport expresses in the UK and maybe a new n standard released at macworld. many thanks for your help. hugo