Is the antenna the only upgrade on the new AEBS/TC

[kellte2]

Awesome dude! Now here's the magical question - is this 3x3 antenna improvement capable of the new 450mbps improvement or is it still stuck at 300mbps (but with 3x3 antennas?)

Also - I think this new model is now a "Standard" N router (no draft at all) - can you confirm that?

The answer to your question is in the article I posed a few comments up. its 450 mbps, but no card on any apple can handle that yet - at least according to that source.

 

[crellion]

The answer to your question is in the article I posed a few comments up. its 450 mbps, but no card on any apple can handle that yet - at least according to that source.

Not necessarily. Just because it's 3x3 antennas doesn't mean it can handle 3 data streams (necessary for 450mbits). That's something required in the router chipset itself as well...

So far only Ralink, TrendNet, and Marvell have made chipsets (NOT antennas per say) that support that 3rd data link.

So I'm guessing this new Airport Extreme is probably using that extra 3rd antenna to improve what it already had on the previous model - redundant SDM signals means better reception and range. Yet this new model (MC340LL/A) is still only 300 mbps in throughput. Thus this new Apple AP would be a (3x3:2 Stream) router...

 

[crellion]

ams23 - can you confirm if the router you just got is a final-N standard? I isn't Draft-N 2.0 anymore right?

 

[powerbook911]

Mine arrived this morning too! It works really nicely, but my Apple TV still messed up.

 

[crellion]

Mine arrived this morning too! It works really nicely, but my Apple TV still messed up.

Well can you give me the specs of what you see? (Draft-N or N)/(300Mbps or 450Mbps) etc...

 

[powerbook911]

Well can you give me the specs of what you see? (Draft-N or N)/(300Mbps or 450Mbps) etc...

I'd be happy to, but I have no idea how to check that.

 

[crellion]

I'd be happy to, but I have no idea how to check that.

Well I guess the first place to look is what the specs on the package box say - does it say DRAFT N anywhere?

 

[powerbook911]

Well I guess the first place to look is what the specs on the package box say - does it say DRAFT N anywhere?

Nope, no mention of draft N even in the fine print. Just N.

 

[crellion]

Nope, no mention of draft N even in the fine print. Just N.

So I guess this really is one of the first STANDARD N routers on the market! While many people say Draft 2.0 and Standard N are one and the same, it's not really - there definitely were some additional hardware requirements since the legacy Draft 2.0 standard. So it's really not as simple as ripping the "DRAFT" label off a draft N product and calling it a standard N product (though they are completely cross-compatible) Which is why the current Airport Express on Apple's website even right now still has the Draft 2.0 moniker...

 

[powerbook911]

Very interesting. It did seem Apple got on the ball quickly to do this, and that they probably would not have updated it, if not to change it to the N standard I guess.

 

[crellion]

Now onto the throughput-test. The only way I see if you can get a 450mbps connection on this new Airport is if you had an Intel 5300 mini-PCI card - which support 3x3:3 stream connection. If your connection tops around 300mbps - we still can't figure out if it's a 3-stream router or 2-stream router (since 300mbps requires only 2-streams.)

 

[powerbook911]

Now onto the throughput-test. The only way I see if you can get a 450mbps connection on this new Airport is if you had an Intel 5300 mini-PCI card - which support 3x3:3 stream connection. If your connection tops around 300mbps - we still can't figure out if it's a 3-stream router or 2-stream router (since 300mbps requires only 2-streams.)

No, I do not have anything with that card. Hopefully with some time someone will post more details or break it down or something, to get this information out.

 

[crellion]

I wonder how the range and signal stability of this new is compared to the previous AirPort model? How easier is it to stay at a 300mbps strength signal?

powerbook911 and ams23 - any thoughts on this?

 

[ams23]

i'm not at home, so i can't test it...but i will update you when i get a chance. informal testing, however, showed a dramatic improvement in range (no longer need an express to extend)

 

[rkdiddy]

i'm not at home, so i can't test it...but i will update you when i get a chance. informal testing, however, showed a dramatic improvement in range (no longer need an express to extend)

downside - you're now impotent.


That is impressive. I'm seriously considering selling my TC and picking up one of these new bad boys.

 

[powerbook911]

The range of N is very impressive. It seems it is slowly solving some network issues I had been having.

 

[rkdiddy]

just got it today and i can confirm:
1. power brick is still external
2. new version of airport utility with the unit with some added tweaks (which i'm expecting will be available via software update in the future for other models)-- mobileme advanced tab now allows multiple mobileme account holders to be listed for backtomymac functionality
3. range is much improved over my prior dual-band airport extreme (early '09) unit

Are you noticing any speed difference?

 

[calderone]

If you want to check the link speed you need to open up Network Utility.

See the image below.

 

[occamsrazor]

I'm about to get the cash out for either a new AEBS or Time Capsule, I still can't decide which. I want to use it to back up 2 x MBPs via wireless and 2 x Mac Minis via ethernet, and also use if for file storage. I was gonna go for the TC until I read the problems with it, and I live in a hot place so heat can be an issue.

Anyway, my questions are....

1. Wireless speed is one thing but what about gigabit ethernet speed? Surely using the AEBS you would be artificially-limited to the speed of the USB2 connection, no? Which is much less than can be achieved with gigabit ethernet. So shouldn't the TC wired speed (i.e. gigabit > SATA) be better than the AEBS (i.e. gigabit > USB2)?

2. If I walk into a store on Monday to buy one, how can I be sure I'm getting the newer models and not old stock?

Thanks in advance...

 

[calderone]

By the way. Mine will be here tomorrow. I'll post my findings.

 

[crellion]

As I said before - we can't figure out if the Airport supports 450mbps unless one has a Intel 5300 (3x3:3 Streams). All the Macs top out at 300mbps (2x3:2 Streams - for MB/MBP and 2x2:2 Steams - for desktop Macs).

 

[Squonk]

1. Wireless speed is one thing but what about gigabit ethernet speed? Surely using the AEBS you would be artificially-limited to the speed of the USB2 connection, no? Which is much less than can be achieved with gigabit ethernet. So shouldn't the TC wired speed (i.e. gigabit > SATA) be better than the AEBS (i.e. gigabit > USB2)?

2. If I walk into a store on Monday to buy one, how can I be sure I'm getting the newer models and not old stock?

1) I think you are right on the money with this one.

2) Check out the part numbers:
new AEBS = MC340LL/A
TC1GB = MC343LL/A
TC2GB = MC344LL/A

Cheers!

 

[calderone]

Just got mine in, about 15 minutes ago.

Using the "802.11n only (5 Ghz) - 802.11b/g/n" I am getting a link speed of 270 Mbit/s on my MBA. Oddly enough, my initial link speed was about 130 Mbit/s. A restart of the AEBS cleared that up and it has been 270 Mbit/s since.

First impressions:

• I had the first N AEBS (A1143) so I didn't have the guest network or the dual band.
• I love dual band, I was getting about 11MB/s while copying down a 782.8 MB MKV. The copy from my Mac Pro to my Air took 1:17.
• You cannot use RADIUS/WPA2 Enterprise with the Guest Network. Little bummed about that.
• It seems I also cannot hide the Guest Network.
• RADIUS seems much more stable. On my old N, authentication would hang. It seems faster now and no hang ups.
• I like the layout of the new Airport Utility. Which is version 5.5.
• You cannot configure the new AEBS with version 5.4.2 of Airport Utility.

I am enjoying the increased performance, but I really wish I could use my RADIUS server for the guest network and I wish I could hide the guest network.

 

[crellion]

Just got mine in, about 15 minutes ago.

Using the "802.11n only (5 Ghz) - 802.11b/g/n" I am getting a link speed of 270 Mbit/s on my MBA. Oddly enough, my initial link speed was about 130 Mbit/s. A restart of the AEBS cleared that up and it has been 270 Mbit/s since.

First impressions:

• I had the first N AEBS (A1143) so I didn't have the guest network or the dual band.
• I love dual band, I was getting about 11MB/s while copying down a 782.8 MB MKV. The copy from my Mac Pro to my Air took 1:17.
• You cannot use RADIUS/WPA2 Enterprise with the Guest Network. Little bummed about that.
• It seems I also cannot hide the Guest Network.
• RADIUS seems much more stable. On my old N, authentication would hang. It seems faster now and no hang ups.
• I like the layout of the new Airport Utility. Which is version 5.5.
• You cannot configure the new AEBS with version 5.4.2 of Airport Utility.

I am enjoying the increased performance, but I really wish I could use my RADIUS server for the guest network and I wish I could hide the guest network.

This makes me wonder if they updated the chips inside the router, in addition to the antenna. Must be some hardware revisions internally as well.

This would be significant since performance-wise all the Airport Draft-N's since the very first one were essentially the same in performance albeit with added Gigabit and Simultaneous-Dual-Band in the later (but still Draft-N) models...

 

[deceiver]

Anyone care to make the new airport utility available for us? Just to test it out

oh and what firmware version does it have? I sure hope they keep updating the older devices, the 7.4.2 firmware causes lots of problems with usb drives (for me and others in apple support forums)