Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

zanyterp · Dec 14, 2005, 06:06 AM

i will be receiving a pb soon and i will be taking advantage of the wireless feature in my actiontec modem.

i am planning on turning on wpa and MAC authentication (paranoia at it's best) to help ensure that only my PB can connect to the wireless connection.

i was wondering what type of performance hit i can expect once these are turned on?

thanks!

ghporter · Dec 14, 2005, 10:59 AM

You may notice a tiny delay as a connection is established, but in my experience there is no noticable "performance hit" from running WPA. You will no doubt hear from others who will tell you about horrendous slowdowns they've experienced, but that's definitely not typical.

And please don't even consider WEP. It's worse than useless...

zanyterp · Dec 14, 2005, 12:12 PM

i haven't looked much into the config, so i didn't realize they were turned on separately. i was only planning on using WPA for the encryption/security.

for the MAC authentication, will my AE MAC be under the Airport setup/config or in Networking under System Preferences (just so i don't lock myself out by putting the wrong MAC address in).

amazing · Dec 14, 2005, 01:17 PM

Do the current actiontec even support wpa? Last one I saw only did WEP, and the tech support people acknowledged that it was a pretty porous router. Not that that matters for a Mac, since they're very secure even without a router in front of them.

You'll find the MAC address either under the Networking System Pref panel (show: airport) or by using System Profiler (Apps/utilities or click on the "more info" button on the "about this Mac" screen.) MAC address filtering applies usually to wireless connections, so you can't be locked out since you can just use ethernet.

zanyterp · Dec 14, 2005, 06:01 PM

thanks amazing. i thought i saw it when i was browsing through my config settings....i guess i could be wrong. but, for as lousy as wep is, it is better than nothing, right? even if it gives only a <1 sec pause?

amazing · Dec 14, 2005, 07:11 PM

hey, I might be wrong--so, if you find wpa, please report back.

Anyway, if the actiontec doesn't have wpa, much depends on your wireless neighborhood. If you're the only one, that may indicate that there's not too many laptops in your neighborhood, and your risk goes down. You can always wait till you see a great deal on a newish WAP that has the features you want.

zanyterp · Dec 15, 2005, 05:01 AM

i do have wpa as an option in my modem (other options are wep or wep+802.x).

i don't know how many people are using wireless in my area, but i live in an apt complex surrounded on all sides by people. i was going for the "better safe than sorry" route.

and at this point, i would probable stick with what i have cuz my router came from my dsl provider (i'm renting it) and it's just as easy to use this at this point rather than buy a new WAP and hope that it is compatible. (i'm hoping the cable company will provide service soon so i can get to a reliable connection. 8) )

ghporter · Dec 15, 2005, 04:08 PM

zanyterp, maybe you should post the precise model number (what's on the label on the back/bottom) including any extra characters before and after the basic model number. And post the firmware version if you can find it too. It sounds like you're using either a different hardware version or (more likely) a different firmware version of the box amazing has.

Partisan01 · Dec 16, 2005, 01:30 AM

If what I'm hearing is correct you're using a modem... the modem will be the bottleneck in your connection not any encryption on your connection between you and the modem.

Think of it like this, you have a pipe between you and the router that can handle 100s of gallons a second, the pipe between your router and the internet can handle a gallon a minute. Your best bet is to encrypt

zanyterp · Dec 16, 2005, 02:02 AM

partisan01: i'm directly connected by ethernet on my emac to my modem/router (or i guess it would be more appropriately called a csu/dsu) that also acts as a wireless router if i enable that for the PB (which i'm planning on).

ghporter: it's an actiontec dsl modem with wireless gateway gt701-wg. no firmware version is listed.

ghporter · Dec 16, 2005, 10:44 AM

This is ActionTec's page for the GT701. As we can see, there are two different hardware versions. zanyterp is using the Qwest version (the -wg version). amazing, which are you using?

I'll bet that there is a firmware difference between the two boxes too; it's probably the REAL difference between them.

Has the speed issue been settled?