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Latest AirPort Extremes and Time Capsules Offer Improved Wi-Fi Range and Performance
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Thunderbolt that's what's missing!
Thunderbolt that's what's missing!
I recently used the new 5th gen Airport Extreme to try to solve a vexing WiFi problem in my in-laws' home. My wife's parents live in a large two-story home outside of Boston. The home is actually three separate sections, two of which are about 200 years old and the oldest section about 300 years old. As a result, the house is built of old-growth, hand sawed timbers, thick dense walls and plaster everywhere rather than drywall. To make matters worse, like many 17th-18th century homes, there are four different fireplace conduits, all of which are internal to the house (not against exterior walls).
My father-in-law has been using an old Linksys WRT54g v2 router for years and an aging Mac Powerbook G4 on the receiving end. The two have been working together ok but it's only because of happenstance of where the router is versus the computer. Imagine the house is a large "L" shaped structure. The office where the router is is located on the upper floor, at the upper left corner of the "L". The dining room where the Mac is setup is on the ground floor at the bottom left corner of the "L". Just by luck, the Mac and the Linksys don't have any major obstacles between them outside of the floor between them and a low number of walls. But most of the rest of the home isn't so lucky.
We discovered that there are bedrooms on the top floor that don't get good enough WiFi, mainly due to obstacles like the aforementioned fireplaces. And when I mean "good enough", I mean, no bars, no service. Even worse, the kitchen and the den which are located on the ground floor and the lower horizontal spine of the "L" also get no service. Well, the kitchen is pretty bad (off and on) and the den at the end of the house is no bars, no service.
So I replaced it a couple of weeks ago with the Airport Extreme 5th gen. The effect was immediate. Bedrooms on the top floor that had no service were now nice and strong. The kitchen which was always a problem was not reachable by just about every device, but the signal was degraded somewhat. The den is still the hardest place to get service because the signal has to leave the office, go through another bedroom, through a floor, out an exterior wall (with horsehair insulation!), across the yard about 20 yards, and through another exterior wall or glass depending on where you are sitting. For the den, laptops (including my Toshiba Portege R700 Core i5) had good performance, iPads had somewhat spotty but still serviceable performance. Only iPhones could not see the router (but they still can see 3G).
Of course, relocating the airport could easily solve the lagging reception in the den but that's easier said than done. I do have an old gen 1 Airport Extreme lying around. I might use it to extend the network in the den and solve the problem that way. But the new Airport Extreme has pretty sweet range.
My father-in-law has been using an old Linksys WRT54g v2 router for years and an aging Mac Powerbook G4 on the receiving end. The two have been working together ok but it's only because of happenstance of where the router is versus the computer. Imagine the house is a large "L" shaped structure. The office where the router is is located on the upper floor, at the upper left corner of the "L". The dining room where the Mac is setup is on the ground floor at the bottom left corner of the "L". Just by luck, the Mac and the Linksys don't have any major obstacles between them outside of the floor between them and a low number of walls. But most of the rest of the home isn't so lucky.
We discovered that there are bedrooms on the top floor that don't get good enough WiFi, mainly due to obstacles like the aforementioned fireplaces. And when I mean "good enough", I mean, no bars, no service. Even worse, the kitchen and the den which are located on the ground floor and the lower horizontal spine of the "L" also get no service. Well, the kitchen is pretty bad (off and on) and the den at the end of the house is no bars, no service.
So I replaced it a couple of weeks ago with the Airport Extreme 5th gen. The effect was immediate. Bedrooms on the top floor that had no service were now nice and strong. The kitchen which was always a problem was not reachable by just about every device, but the signal was degraded somewhat. The den is still the hardest place to get service because the signal has to leave the office, go through another bedroom, through a floor, out an exterior wall (with horsehair insulation!), across the yard about 20 yards, and through another exterior wall or glass depending on where you are sitting. For the den, laptops (including my Toshiba Portege R700 Core i5) had good performance, iPads had somewhat spotty but still serviceable performance. Only iPhones could not see the router (but they still can see 3G).
Of course, relocating the airport could easily solve the lagging reception in the den but that's easier said than done. I do have an old gen 1 Airport Extreme lying around. I might use it to extend the network in the den and solve the problem that way. But the new Airport Extreme has pretty sweet range.
It's an N450 (simultaneous) dual band router, which is basically the fastest wireless standard today (up to 450Mbit/second theoretical), and with simultaneous dual band, doesn't degrade your bandwidth to the lowest (slowest) common denominator if you connect a non 802.11n device to your wireless network. It's not fair to compare the dual-band routers to single band (even if a/b/g/n capable) price-wise, at least if you have any non N devices that may ever be connected.
I can't speak for performance 'improvements' with Apple systems connecting to Airport* routers - I'd expect similar performance to comparable Cisco/Linksys and other dual band N450 devices, but I'd also expect 'wideband mode' (the 450Mbit/second mode) to work potentially more reliably with Apple hardware.
Having said that, still no QoS, so it's a pass, still waiting.
Apple fanboys are clueless as always.
There are $70 routers that are just as good. Dual band and everything.
I think I'm going to do the clueless thing and get one. Had more or less convinced myself to get one after reading the which.co.uk test, and after reading here that the new one is faster, all I need to do now is find the money.
Power ratings on new AC adapter
Hey guys,
I just had a quick question for anyone who may have a new 5th generation Airport Extreme. Can you tell me if the power rating numbers on the AC adapter are:
Input AC 100-200v 50-60Hz 0.5A Output: 12V 1.8A Model: A1202?
I know that these are the numbers from an older adapter but was just wondering if the new adapters are any different?
Thanks!
Hey guys,
I just had a quick question for anyone who may have a new 5th generation Airport Extreme. Can you tell me if the power rating numbers on the AC adapter are:
Input AC 100-200v 50-60Hz 0.5A Output: 12V 1.8A Model: A1202?
I know that these are the numbers from an older adapter but was just wondering if the new adapters are any different?
Thanks!
My small house is about triple the size of your place with a brick interior chimney smack in the middle of the house. That's probably why we had different reception levels, not because of bad receivers
In short: there is no swedish model of the Airport Extreme.
For the 2,4GHz wifi band, all european countries follow the EC policies. This basically means that no wifi base station, legally sold within Europe, will transmit more than 100mW in the 2.4GHz band.
You still could experiment with the Airport Extreme country setting. You'll probably won't find no difference in the 2,4GHz band. But maybe in the 5GHz band, because legislation here still differs between countries. For example, in the UK 200mW is allowed on channels 100 and higher. In the Netherlands only 100mW.
Sources: EU Standards legislation, Solwise
Can anyone who upgraded from the 4th or 3rd gen tell me if there is a huge difference in speed and range? I mean a big difference - thanks
Agreed. I can't tell you how many times in the past I had to reset my Linksys router when gaming online. Since I switched to an Extreme in 2010, I've never had to reset it.
Just read that review Weaselboy, thank you for the link.
I have some itunes streaming dropouts, so I might replace my rev4 with one to test results of my own. My office needs a new one, so I will just bring mine in to swap the netgear router out if the new gen works better.