Wireless at Home

[Stirman]

About to buy a 12" PB (although trying to be patient and wait for an update, but that's beside the point), and I'm a little confused about my options for setting up a wireless connection at my home. I currently have a cable modem connection to my PC, which will need to stay connected. My questions are:

1. Is there any difference in getting a wireless router, or spending more to get a normal router and hooking up an Aiport Base Station to it? Do the Apple Base Station options work better with Apple computers?
2. Does the Airport Express work like a wireless base station, or do you use the Express IN ADDITION to an already existing wireless setup to play your music over the connection?
3. Pending the answer to #2, Is the speed or distance compromised if I buy an Express over the Extreme Base Station?

Great commnunity here. I look forward to getting my PB and chipping in around here. These threads have been most useful...thanks!

-Stirman
www.stirman.net

 

[acedickson]

1. Is there any difference in getting a wireless router, or spending more to get a normal router and hooking up an Aiport Base Station to it? Do the Apple Base Station options work better with Apple computers?
2. Does the Airport Express work like a wireless base station, or do you use the Express IN ADDITION to an already existing wireless setup to play your music over the connection?
3. Pending the answer to #2, Is the speed or distance compromised if I buy an Express over the Extreme Base Station?

1. I say save the money and get a Linksys WRT54G. I have one and it works great! I just got my sister to get one too. You can find them for around $50 US. It has 4 ethernet ports for wired connections too.

2. You can do both with it. It's an awesome piece of hardware.

3. Speed depends on your connection's speed and the signal strength (affected by distance and obstacles between the wireless router).

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Cheap-Chopstix]

I got the linksys ...works like a charm... no problems and crap ... and it took me like literally 5 minutes to setup. I've had experience with many routers from D-link to SMC and Linksys by far was the easiest to use and had a better signal then my SMC. My SMC router would always cut-on and off. Get Linksys you won't regret it.

 

[shadowmoses]

If the area you wish to cover is not too big te Airport Express will do all the things you want it to....

I would also reccomend a netgear wireless router i have had one for almost 2 years and it is still going strong.....

Also congrats on the great website, looks great....

ShadOW 😉

 

[Stirman]

Thanks!

Thanks fellas...just what I needed to know. Much appreciated.

Thanks for the comments on the site Shadow, just went live with this redesign and it's going well, hope to see ya around!

-stirman
www.stirman.net

 

[mkrishnan]

The three features that the Airports have that are not super common on third party routers are WPA2, wireless printing, and streaming music. Of those, WPA2 is relatively easiest to get on other routers, and streaming music hardest. If you want to use wireless printing and/or streaming music, I'd say an Airport Express is a great option. Otherwise, I agree with what everyone else said.

The Airport Extreme Base Station can handle more clients. I don't know if it emits a stronger signal or not, though. And it has a wired LAN port, which the Airport Express does not. But, even though I have one, I don't think I would get an Airport Extreme today, even for that. I would probably use a wired router upstream of the Airport Express today (I have a wired router sitting around, but I just use my Airport Extreme, as only one ethernet device and one USB printer live on it).

 

[debo]

The linksys is essentially a linux box, and the sveasoft people have written new firmware allowing you to do all sorts of krazy nonsense. I think it's probably the router of choice right now.