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How fast can Airport Extreme go?

D

deepthought

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 27, 2004
1
0
I want to network a mac and a pc via an Airport extreme basestation

To quote from Apple
"To achieve maximum speed of 54Mbps the wireless network must only have AirPort Extreme-enabled computers on it."
Does this mean that a 802.11g enabled PC will not get up to 54Mbps?

It also says:
"If a user with an AirPort-enabled computer or a Wi-Fi certified 802.11b product joins an AirPort Extreme wireless network, that user will get up to 11Mbps and the AirPort Extreme users on the same wireless network will get less than 54Mbps."

I take it that this was written before 802.11g was widely available.
Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks


Deepthought
 
thats BS...and yeah it probably was written before 802.11g was popular in the PC world.

Just keep in mind (god this must be like the 4th time i'm saying this this week) that AirPort Extreme aka 802.11g has a theoretical maximum speed of 54mbps.
 
übergeek said:
thats BS...and yeah it probably was written before 802.11g was popular in the PC world.

Just keep in mind (god this must be like the 4th time i'm saying this this week) that AirPort Extreme aka 802.11g has a theoretical maximum speed of 54mbps.
Click to expand...

also- remember that it is 54 mega BITS per second, not 54 mega BYTES per second. so, it is closer to (54/8 to make bits bytes) 6 MB per second.
 
idkew said:
also- remember that it is 54 mega BITS per second, not 54 mega BYTES per second. so, it is closer to (54/8 to make bits bytes) 6 MB per second.
Click to expand...

Also remember the putting a 10 pound ham between the airport card and base station will not increase your bandwidth. It's not documented anywhere but it's true.
 
deepthought said:
I want to network a mac and a pc via an Airport extreme basestation

To quote from Apple
"To achieve maximum speed of 54Mbps the wireless network must only have AirPort Extreme-enabled computers on it."
Does this mean that a 802.11g enabled PC will not get up to 54Mbps?

It also says:
"If a user with an AirPort-enabled computer or a Wi-Fi certified 802.11b product joins an AirPort Extreme wireless network, that user will get up to 11Mbps and the AirPort Extreme users on the same wireless network will get less than 54Mbps."

I take it that this was written before 802.11g was widely available.
Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks


Deepthought
Click to expand...

It's trying to say that the base station will not be able to operate at 54Mbps when there are 11 Mbps links attached to it. If there are no machines with 11 Mbps (802.11b) cards involved, it will operate at maximum speed. That is 54 Mbps with overhead and approximately 20 Mbps data throughput. This contrasts with 802.11b with 11 Mbps with overhead and approximately 5 Mbps throughput.
 
idkew said:
also- remember that it is 54 mega BITS per second, not 54 mega BYTES per second. so, it is closer to (54/8 to make bits bytes) 6 MB per second.
Click to expand...
6.75MB. also i said mbps, that implies i meant megabits :) (should be Mbps, because i'm afraid szark might yell at me again :p) megabytes per sec is MBps.
 
Does anyone know about Netgear's 108Mbps wireless networks? They require that you use Netgear cards, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with it?
I have the Netgear WGT624, but obviously with the airport card, I only get the 54Mbps speed (theoretically).

Are the airport extreme cards capable of this speed (is there an upgrade coming from Apple)? See this article about how D-Link 'g' users can download an update and upgrade their 54Mbps gear to 108Mbps.

??
 
Colonel Panik said:
Does anyone know about Netgear's 108Mbps wireless networks? They require that you use Netgear cards, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with it?
I have the Netgear WGT624, but obviously with the airport card, I only get the 54Mbps speed (theoretically).

Are the airport extreme cards capable of this speed (is there an upgrade coming from Apple)? See this article about how D-Link 'g' users can download an update and upgrade their 54Mbps gear to 108Mbps.

??
Click to expand...

The 108mbps is just two channels of 802.11g The same technology was used with 22mbps 802.11b routers.
 
crazzyeddie said:
The 108mbps is just two channels of 802.11g The same technology was used with 22mbps 802.11b routers.
Click to expand...

A-ha. I can understand that. Thanks. Do you think that it's possible for the Apple Airport Extreme cards to be updated to use two channels simultaneously?
 
Colonel Panik said:
A-ha. I can understand that. Thanks. Do you think that it's possible for the Apple Airport Extreme cards to be updated to use two channels simultaneously?
Click to expand...
I don't know if Apple is going to do that. It is not part of the 802.11g specification. It is proprietary to Netgear.

With the doubling that happened for 802.11b, it was done in different [incompatable] ways by different companies. So unless it becomes part of the spec, I can't see Apple trying it.
 
I haven't had much luck with Airports Extreme. They keep freezing up on me where I work (which then means I have to run around and reset them all-Apple, you listening?). But then again, I may be having issues because I have stuffing in my turkey. :p
 
Roger1 said:
I haven't had much luck with Airports Extreme. They keep freezing up on me where I work (which then means I have to run around and reset them all-Apple, you listening?). But then again, I may be having issues because I have stuffing in my turkey. :p
Click to expand...

Just put all the airport base stations on the same circuit. Then, whenever they're on the futz just flip the breaker switch... easier said than done I suppose... :)
 
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