[PianoMan]

hi i'm having a bit trouble trying to get my head around the airport extreme base station.

is this product actually a router? my sister has just ordered the the new imac with a built in airport extreme card. she wants to set up internet connection wirelessly and i said i would try and do it for her.

now we're planning on getting ADSL Broadband connection through the existing telephone wire, here in the UK. What i'm struggling to get my head around is will I just need to buy the Airport Extreme base station and plug it straight into the telephone socket and it will beam the internet connection to the built in extreme card, or will i have to but an ADSL router and plug the Airport Extreme base station into that?

I'm really confused here, because i'm trying to work out what is the point of the Airport Base station if it needs to plug into another router to work?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

sorry i posted this in the peripheral section by accident.

[John Strung]

The Airport Extreme is a router. You will have to connect the DSL modem to the WAN ethernet port of the Airport Extreme. Make sure the your provider gives you a DSL modem with an ethernet connection, not one with a USB connection. The USB port on the Airport Extreme is only for printers.


The Airport Extreme is not your only choice for a wireless router. The Airport card in your sister's computer is equally capable of connecting to any wireless router, and I think you will find you can purchase a third party wireless router (Linksys is very popular) for much less than the cost of an Airport Extreme Base Station.

[PianoMan]

hi thanks for your reply. i posted the same thing at another forum and got a good reply. the guy there recommends either this or this netgear router. although i don't know which one. only difference seems speed and i don't know whether the difference would actually matter to me. he recommends this because it's all-in-one and works for ADSL connection.

what do you think?

[harrisjamieh]

I would go with the slightly more expensive Netgear router you posted the link for, the one with the faster speed, because you never know when you might need more speed for, say, wireless networking, and even though the wireless card in the iMac is only 54 mbps, you never know when you might need it, and it is only about another tenner.

Also this is a good choice, as, like the person that reccomended these said, it has a built in modem, which means you need just the one physical box to connect wirelessly to the net.

[PianoMan]

thanks. so even if i bought the more expensive one, the imac card itself is only able of 54mbps, so really unless i updated that in the future too, the extra speed would be useless? if that is the case then maybe i'll just go for the cheaper one.

[harrisjamieh]

Yes, im pretty sure i'm correct in saying that, on Apples website is says:

""""AirPort Extreme provides a range up to 50 feet at 54 Mbps and up to 150 feet at 11 Mbps for AirPort Extreme-enabled computers.""""

...and that was the info given for the actual airport extreme card, so yes, the imac can only get a max of 54 mbps, though my argument was, for another £10, I think its worth the investment for when faster cards do appear, as you would be future-proofing yourself. But, up to you, if you really dont think you need it then get the cheaper one, it will still work well