hoping someone here can give me some advice on something.

i just moved into a very large house. its 3 stories and we have computers on each level. my iMac is on the top level. the home theater pc is on the middle level, and we will be using laptops on that level as well. and there is one laptop on the bottom level.

here goes, hope this isn't confusing:

currently the imac is the only machine with 802.11n, however i'm considering getting a pci card for my home theater pc to enable 802.11n on there as well. all the laptops have 802.11g.

I have a feeling that my single Linksys 802.11n router won't be enough to power all machines throughout the house, because of range and incompatability with mixed mode wifi.

I would like to replace the Linksys with an Airport Extreme for several reasons that I won't go into here. But, I also want to get an airport express or something else that I can install somewhere else in the house. I'm still waiting for the cable people to come and install my internet since we moved, so i'm unsure where it is being placed however my office on on the top level so ideally it'll be in there. Meaning the Airport Extreme will likely be in there.

As such, I'll need to put the express on the middle level most likely. And here's the thing, I want the 802.11g devices to connect to the Airport Express, and the 802.11n devices to connect to the Extreme. this is because I'll be transferring a lot of data between both N devices, and the G devices will mostly be for browsing and music sharing etc. but, i don't know how the express will connect to the extreme and provide access to the same internet connection either.

Confused yet? I'm entering an area of home wifi that i've not explored yet so am looking for advice or links to good articles/diagrams etc. Or a good explanation from a mactalk member

help?

edit: just thinking further, i probably don't need an airport express, i could just use my linksys in 802.11g mode...so the notebooks can connect to that and the two n devices can hook up with each other on the airport

There was an article in Aust Macworld a month or two ago about this. Any router that mixes networks will run at the lower speed ie mix of n and g will still run at G speeds. If you have an AppleTV, this sucks.

I kept my old snow Airport when I upgraded to an N Airport Extreme. Both connect into my ADSL router, so anything with N connects to the Extreme, anything with G or B connects to the Snow. The AppleTV syncs very quickly when its an N only network :-) You might have to think about doing the same thing, unless the Linksys can actually have two separate wifi connections.

Gehenna,
The July issue of Australian Macworld has an article about network setups with a mix of 802.11 b/g & n and explains about separating g & n to maximise performance as well as extending the range of the network(s)
I can't find the article on the net, but have scanned it. PM your email and I can send you the article.

Cheers...

thanks for the quick replies.

lavo: my cable modem only allows one ethernet out which goes to the linksys currently and would go to the extreme assuming i got one.

redman: pm sent!

Does the linksys have more than one ethernet port in? That way you can run a pure n network with the built in wireless, then bridge a g wireless router through the ethernet port on the Linsys.

the linksys has 4 10/100 ports, 1x ethernet in which you connect the cable modem to.

i was reading that article and i have a quick question. it seems i can probably do this by using the linksys as my 802.11n router, and an airport express as the g router.

the article says i would configure the g airport express manually: name the network, configure it to use dhcp, turn connection sharing off, and then apply the settings.

it then says run an ethernet cable from the airport express to the 802.11n router. my question is - do i need to have both cabled together? if i want to put the express downstairs, and keep the N router upstairs, could i not just have the g router connect wirelessly to the N router?

ideas anyone?

edit: looks like this article is actually talking about an airport base station, not express....would my description work with an express?

Simple answer... NO

As the G router cannot talk to the N one and act as a repeater. If you ethernet connected the G unit to the N unit and they both acted as AP's and only dished out the one DHCP scope etc, then it would then allow you to have 2 different wireless networks, 1 for G devices, 1 for N devices.

thanks purana.

so, if i'm reading that right I could do that - have the n and g physically connected and create 2 separate networks, then i could put another g downstairs and have it repeat only the g network right? so essentially i would need to get 2 g devices.....configure one upstairs as the article says, and then configure the downstairs one as the repeater. would the g devices both be routers or would access points suffice? or would one be a router and one an access point?

i think the easiest thing, after some more reading, will be to get a 801.22g router and configure it as per the article, then get a wireless repeater for downstairs and have that talk only to the g network.

thanks for all the help!

OK my recommendation is as follows: Use your Linksys for 802.11b/g, and get an Airport Extreme N router for N only.

Reason being:
The Linksys, Netgear & DLink 802.11n routers are all using 2.4GHz frequencies, so their max speed is around 130Mb via their 802.11n, and that's only if there is no interference from other devices in the 2.4Ghz range (such as 802.11b/g, microwaves, bluetooth etc).

By using an Airport Extreme N, you can set it to 802.11a/n or 802.11n only mode which uses the 5Ghz frequency range - keeping it at max throughput as there is minimal interference and giving you a 300Mb connection. The thing to remember though is that any PCI card you buy for your machine downstairs has to support 802.11 b, g, a & n, otherwise it won't connect to the Airport Extreme N (as it won't support the 5Ghz frequency).

I have my house setup with an Airport Extreme N set to 802.11a/n mode, and an Airport Express setup for b/g. Each has their own SSID so I know which one I'm connected to, although you could probably set them to the same SSID and let the 802.11n capable computers decide which one to connect to.

This is the highest performing configuration you can get for these devices, and at the moment the Airport Extreme N router is the only one I know that can do both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

Regards,
Shane.

thanks scritch.

doh, that actually makes a lot of sense and i should have thought of it earlier purely because my wrt300n already delivers a strong signal to the lower floor, not sure about the basement though as i haven't been down there yet. but yep, sounds good.

any recommendation on pci 802.11n card for the downstairs pc?

I'm just checking to see if it supports Windows or not (I've sent them an email), but QuickerTek have a 802.11b/a/g/n PCI adapter here.

Update: Not sure - but it may not be 5Ghz capable... I've sent them another email

Regards,
Shane.

Unfortunately whilst the QuickerTek card does support Windows, it is only a 2.4Ghz unit. Hopefully someone will bring out a new dual-band Atheros chipset based unit soon.

Regards,
Shane.

I used to run an 11g network at home, using a Linksys WRT54G. I added an Airport Extreme (n) to give better speed to the (only) 11n device on my household, a MBP.

Initially, I was operating the whole thing as scritch describes above (Linksys running 11g on 2.4GHz, Airport running 11n on 5GHz). Simply because everybody said that mixing 11n and 11g on the same AP will only give you 11g speeds to 11n clients. I was getting 28Mbps to an 11g iMac (via the Linksys) and 300Mbps to the MBP. FWIW, The iMac is at the remote corner of the house and the MBP within 5 meters of the Airport.

It turned out that what everybody said wasn't quite true. Just for kicks, I turned off the Linksys and configured the Airport in 11n/11g compatibility mode (on 2.4GHz). The 11g client was now getting 48Mbps and the MBP got 130Mbps. Sure, a drop from 300, but still good enough (esp. given that the Airport's ethernet ports are only 10/100Mbps).

In the end I've decided to leave it that way and decommissioned the Linksys for good.

Did I mention I have a Linksys WRT54G for sale...

Cheers
Steffen.

Steffen,

I'd say the Linksys G chipset couldn't handle the throughput, wasn't handling interference very well or had really poor signal strength (dB output).

I personally use an Airport Express for my b/g network (I've also used a ProCurve 420wl Enterprise class b/g Access Point and gotten even better range and throughput), and I get speeds like you are talking about for my g clients, whilst using the Extreme N set to 5Ghz and getting 300Mb with my n clients. When I'm throwing gigabytes of data around, double the throughput (130 to 300) makes a huge difference.

Also keep in mind, just because the connection says it's at a certain speed doesn't mean you're getting it. Skipping the whole access points are hubs so halve every speed discussion, the problem with the 802.11 standard in the 2.4Ghz space is that it has to play well with other devices such as 802.11b. All it take is for an 802.11b client (even if you have b turned off in the Access Point) to get in range and your overall AP throughput will drop to the lowest common denominator - ie the 11Mb 802.11b speeds (and your client still says and thinks it's a shiny 54Mb connection). You don't get this (as much) with the 5Ghz frequency.

Regards,
Shane.