Time capsule and my current router

[thedon1]

I live in the UK and have internet through Sky. They have provided me with a Netgear DG834G router but it's only b/g. It's against the terms and conditions to use another one. I know I could use a work around, but i'd rather not.

If I buy a time capsule for backup purposes, could I also use it as a router? I'm thinking of turning off the wireless capabilities of the Netgear router (I think this is possible) and then connecting the time capsule to it using Ethernet. Then if the time capsule acts as a router, does that mean I have N wireless around my house?

Thanks

 

[JohnH108]

Yes

Yup that's what I do. Except I also left the wireless switched on the Netgear router. (Although it can be turned off) Both work fine together

 

[aristobrat]

If you're going to leave the routing features of the NetGear turned on, plugging a TC into it an using the router features (so you essentially have two routers in your house) may work, but a better way of doing that would be to plug the TC in and use the AirPort Utility to set the TC up as a wireless bridge. That lets it act as a wireless access point vs a wireless router. May help with apps that use port forwarding, like BitTorrent, etc. They will automatically configure port forwarding on your router but when you have two routers, they can't configure the second one.

 

[thedon1]

I doubt I'd need them both on. Is there a major advantage of having them both on?

What's the range like on the time capsule compared to the net gear or similar routers?

I can get a 1TB refurb for £170 or a new 2TB for £250. I'm pretty convinced the 1TB is enough for me. Were there any updates to the networking components in the 2011 time capsules?

 

[aristobrat]

I doubt I'd need them both on. Is there a major advantage of having them both on?

The only advantage I can think of from having the router feature in both the Netgear and the Time Capsule is that it'd save you probably 5 minutes during the setup process.

But unless you're going to use apps that need incoming ports (like BitTorrent), I can't think of any other side-effect if you did leave them both acting as routers.

There seem to be some incidental forum/blog articles about the 2011 TC and Airports having slightly better wireless range than the prior ones, but I haven't seen an Anantech "break down" type of test done on them yet.

 

[thedon1]

Yeah, i've tried looking around for real benchmarks but have not seen anything apart from forum members experiences.

I really don't know if I should go for the refurb or get a new one.

Any recommendations?

 

[aristobrat]

Yeah, i've tried looking around for real benchmarks but have not seen anything apart from forum members experiences.

I really don't know if I should go for the refurb or get a new one.

Any recommendations?

If the only difference between the two is a potential for more signal strength, ... as long as you're not having signal strength issues with the Netgear, I'd think you'd probably do fine with the refurb.

It'd be cool to get some more opinions though. It's like this is an invisible thread or something! LOL