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I can stream 3 (h264) full hd streams at once from my 2011 TC to my 2011 mbp without any problems.

Wow! You can watch the full Lord of the Rings extended edition in 3h30!
 
Label your axes!!!

That was my first thought, so I went to the referenced link. When I returned to the MacRumors article, the horizontal axis label was there. I don't know if it was missing or slow to load initially, or if I simply overlooked it.

My first-gen Time Capsule was a turd bird of the first order and I returned it. I've been happy with my two Airport Expresses, but opted for a Netgear N600 (WNDR3700) some months ago (I HIGHLY recommend it) rather than spending the extra $50 and taking the Airport Extreme plunge.

My Airport Extreme has been on continuously since 2008 with no problems. I did have to put it higher in the living room for better reception in the upstairs (split-level) bedroom.

We don't know the layout of his house. There may be some sort of interference between the router and those rooms.

Interference such as metal and concrete between the downstairs and upstairs that blocks signals.

Ugh why do they always use stupid names like "Airport Extreme"?

Just call it a Wireless 802.11N Router and be done with it. Also who would actually buy a router from Apple? Get an Asus rt-n16.

I believe most people can say "Apple (the name of the company) Extreme" a bit quicker than saying "wireless eight-oh-two-eleven-n router."
 
It's very well priced for the hardware. But clearly it's far too powerful for you, because if it wasn't then you wouldn't be asking this question in the first place. Sure a $40 wireless router will get the job done, but the Airport Extreme will far outreach that $40 router and far surpass it's speed.

However, the 40$ router will be more flexible in its configuration. Right now, I use a DHCP server on my Unix box along with other services like DNS to manage my home network. The AEBS does not let me enable NAT without DHCP being done by the AEBS, which is a big problem for me. So the AEBS is now just a AP and I use a different router for NAT.

This is awkward and a very dumb limitation for such a pricy piece of networking equipment.

Also, you're quite over-estimating the AEBS' wireless capabilities. Other routers on the market also are Dual-band and offer the same range/speed, some even come in cheaper than the AEBS.


The E3200 is 159$. However, the E2500 is also dual-band 802.11n and only 99$.
 
Will this help with interference?

I have the 3rd gen Extreme, and have tried everything, changing channels, no microwave or cordless phones in our apt. Etc. Airplay/Airtunes has been unuseable most of the time.
 
You buy cheap you get cheap. Have fun rebooting your cheap 40 and 50 dollar routers and even your 160 dollar ones. Linksys/Cisco consumer stuff is pure garbage. My AEBS NEVER needs to be unplugged for anything. It just works 24/7 365 days a year. And I have been using wireless routers since the days when they first came out. Life is short. Buy something that will work.
 
You buy cheap you get cheap. Have fun rebooting your cheap 40 and 50 dollar routers and even your 160 dollar ones. Linksys/Cisco consumer stuff is pure garbage. My AEBS NEVER needs to be unplugged for anything. It just works 24/7 365 days a year. And I have been using wireless routers since the days when they first came out. Life is short. Buy something that will work.

My router worked for 6 years without issue...
 
You buy cheap you get cheap. Have fun rebooting your cheap 40 and 50 dollar routers and even your 160 dollar ones. Linksys/Cisco consumer stuff is pure garbage. My AEBS NEVER needs to be unplugged for anything. It just works 24/7 365 days a year. And I have been using wireless routers since the days when they first came out. Life is short. Buy something that will work.

I reboot my AEBS more than my 40$ DLink. I only reboot them for software updates.

Really, all these things are reliable now. Though if I had known the AEBS wasn't flexible in its configuration (and completely lacking a HTTP-based configuration GUI) I'd have gone for a more expensive Linksys model instead and paid less than I did for the AEBS.
 
I heard apple routers have problems with xboxs and stuff like that. Can anyone that has one confirm or deny?

3 xbox 360s
2 wiis
2 ps3
No issues whatsoever with either my linksys 610 or the AEBS or now the TC.
 
You buy cheap you get cheap. Have fun rebooting your cheap 40 and 50 dollar routers and even your 160 dollar ones. Linksys/Cisco consumer stuff is pure garbage. My AEBS NEVER needs to be unplugged for anything. It just works 24/7 365 days a year. And I have been using wireless routers since the days when they first came out. Life is short. Buy something that will work.

I have set up dozens upon dozens of belkins, net gear, linksys, and apples.
The only times any of the set ups needed frequent reboots is crappy incoming signals, a bad device such as a switch, or the numb skulled user went in and changed settings.
9 times out of 10 it's been poor signals coming into the residence.
 
However, the 40$ router will be more flexible in its configuration. Right now, I use a DHCP server on my Unix box along with other services like DNS to manage my home network. The AEBS does not let me enable NAT without DHCP being done by the AEBS, which is a big problem for me. So the AEBS is now just a AP and I use a different router for NAT.

This is awkward and a very dumb limitation for such a pricy piece of networking equipment.

Also, you're quite over-estimating the AEBS' wireless capabilities. Other routers on the market also are Dual-band and offer the same range/speed, some even come in cheaper than the AEBS.



The E3200 is 159$. However, the E2500 is also dual-band 802.11n and only 99$.

99.9999% of the people have better things to do than manage a home network
 
i found a deal for a 2tb time capsule, retail 299, but with 75 dollars off.

is that worth it?
 
99.9999% of the people have better things to do than manage a home network

That's cool for them. For me, the AEBS is not so hot. Flexibility does not mean 99.9999% would have to manage their home network. I don't see how forcing DHCP/NAT together accomplishes anything really.

Sensible defaults are much better than dumbing down. Unfortunately, Apple chose dumbing down in the case of the AEBS. With sensible defaults, 99.9999% would not have had to do anything different and the rest of us would have been able to better integrate the AEBS to our home networking setups.
 
Numbers for distance?

Does anyone have any actual numbers for the improve distance and range? I see that it works better in this guy's kitchen... but how far is his ktichen from the router?
 
To avoid disappointment for anyone living outside the US, you should know that the Airport Extreme (and any other wifi base station) sold in your region may not have the better range than expected. While in the FCC in the US allows wifi base stations to transmit with up to 4 Watt (36dBm) EIRP in the 2.4GHz band and 0.8Watt (29dBm) in the 5GHz band, in other places like most European countries only 100mW (20dBm) is allowed. The US model Airport Extreme transmits about 0.25Watt max, depending on frequency band and channel.

I'm not sure, but it seems like that this limitation can't be overruled by loading the US firmware into the EU model of the Airport Extreme.

Where would I look to find out if the swedish versions are comparable in power to the american versions?
 

E3000 is $136 at Amazon, simultaneous dual band, and runs DD-WRT rock solid. I have one running one network (WPA2) across both bands for my home network, a 2.4GHz network (Open with password login screen) for 'guests' and a third 2.4GHz (WEP - MAC access controlled) for my kids' legacy Nintendo DSs which can't do WPA. Each network fully isolated/firewalled from each other, QoS for VOIP on home network, and a USB drive network share.

I don't think the Airport Extreme can match the flexibility and it hasn't been rebooted in over 6 months.

But... it took some fiddling and a lot of time on forums to get the firewalls all set up right. No real issues, just learning curve.
 
I happened to get lucky and have the 2011 come out before my 14 day return period for the 2010 AE was over, so I upgraded. I was unhappy with the range on the 2010, but the 2011 adds 1 1/2 the range in my home. Very happy with the results. Also found that my wired and wireless speeds were very close to the same. I put an iMac, MBP, PC laptop, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, 3 printers and a Blu-ray player on the network. I didn't have a single problem connecting any of them.

Interesting. My place is a little under 900 square feet, and none of my devices have problems connecting UNLESS there were something inherently wrong with the device itself. For example, the Iconia Tab has a horrible receiver in it, to the point I'd be 4 feet away from the Time Capsule it connected to and yet I could not get full bars. Every Apple device I have has full bars no matter where in the place I am, same as with my Thunderbolt.

Oh well. Guess I'll ride my 2010 till its antennas fall off.
 
re quiet hardware upgrades

nice ninja work aapl - keep going

"grasshopper - what do yo hear?..." - master po
 
Can please somebody with a 5th Gen TimeCapsule test the Internet Throughput?

I know that the Airport Extreme works well, but the old TimeCapsule has some problems with Internet Throughput.

Thanks
 
Interesting. We;re on ADSL 2+ so I suspect we'd need another device to connect to the AE or TC. Does the AE need mains power?
 
I know they're excellent routers, but they're still a bit expensive for my taste.
Yeah, if it had built in modem I would be more satisfied. Unless of course there would be no difference between having a built in modem or connecting to a modem via Ethernet.
 
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