How big a problem is my really old Airport Express

[grnmtn]

I live in a smallish apartment and use a vintage 2006 Airport Express to keep my iMac, MacBook Air, phone and, occasionally, my TV online. Over the wifi I get download speeds of about 7.5 mps. If, however, I plug the modem's ethernet cable directly into the back of the iMac it leaps to about 53mps.

I'm not a huge tech guy but my common sense tells me the very, very old wireless router is probably the bottleneck.

So here's my question... if I go spend $100 on a brand new 2014 model Airport Express is it going to increase my speed noticeably? For a big jump it's definitely worth it, but if a new router only moves me from 7.5 to, say, 11 that's a closer call.

Thanks for any advice folks can offer.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes... you would be going from 802.11g wifi that you have now in the old Express to the newer 802.11n speeds that would easily handle your ~50Mbps Internet speeds.

 

[zepman]

Yes, it should be an improvement.
As best the latest Express (released 2012) can deliver 60-70 Mbps over the 5Ghz band.
How much of an improvement it gets for you depends on what Wi-Fi capabilities your devices have and how close they are to the Express.
Even if your devices use the 2.4Ghz band only, I think you will get 30-40 Mbps.

 

[smithrh]

I've seen an Airport go bad and exhibit the behavior you're mentioning.

I'll agree with the others, even if your current Airport isn't malfunctioning, you should see a very nice improvement with the new model.

 

[Sherwen]

Airport Express 802.11g can't find wireless network

Hi guys ,

I have a Airport express 802.11g , i am using a older airport utility because the 6.0 plus cannot work on it. once i downloaded the airport utility 5.6.1 i can now find my airport express.

I am trying to make it join a wireless network but it cannot find any networks. which is weird because my phone and iPad is connect to my network fine.. Is this a common problem? anyone have any ideas??
help please

Sherwen

 

[Altemose]

Hi guys ,

I have a Airport express 802.11g , i am using a older airport utility because the 6.0 plus cannot work on it. once i downloaded the airport utility 5.6.1 i can now find my airport express.

I am trying to make it join a wireless network but it cannot find any networks. which is weird because my phone and iPad is connect to my network fine.. Is this a common problem? anyone have any ideas??
help please

Sherwen

What OS are you running the utility on?