OS and Software > All Things Macintosh > Airport, Extending network

Airport, Extending network

I do it but with a DB TC and 3 single band AEBSes. Performance is fine. Personally I wouldn't bother with 5GHz.

You can't extend 2 SSIDs but I read that if both bands have the same SSID, it will extend both but I can't confirm that.

reply to HiVolt
This topic comes up now and again.

I recommend reading: »[Network] Airport Express Join vs Extend
»Experience w/ 2 AirPort Extreme dual-band to extend network

In my experience, the airports will pick a set frequency and then use that, and only that, to speak to each other. However, clients connected to one of the base stations will be able to connect on either frequency, if the base station supports dual band.

A few annoyances I found:
-You can't control the frequency the base stations use to talk to each other unless you disable one of the bands, forcing it to use the other. In my old house, they insisted on linking on the 5GHz band but I found that a human in the way seriously interfered with the signal, so any time anyone was in the hall, half the network would go down. I had to disable 5GHz entirely and it worked better
-If you aren't using a base station that supports 2x2 or 3x3 antennae, you'll see a bandwidth crunch as the station can't transmit and receive at the same time. The crunch is worse if the station has to switch frequencies when the client and the other station aren't on the same channel. For that reason, I recommend using exclusively Airport Extreme and Time Capsules, and skip the Airport Express (unless it does simultaneous) dual band now.
-If the client is within range of multiple base stations, it will pick the one with the strongest signal, not the one with the shortest path. Most of the time this is good, because, if you are for example out in the yard and get good signal from the repeater and just barely get a signal from the main station, connecting to the main station will result in a lot of packet loss and poor performance. On the other hand, if you are inside the house and get 5 bars from the repeater and 4 bars from the main station, you would get faster bandwidth by just going directly to the main station and avoiding the extra repeat hop. But, it won't work that way and will connect you to the repeater.
-That said, Macs appear to connect to the most recently connected base station, even if one with much better signal on the same SSID is available. This means if you get online in the house, put the mac to sleep, go into the back yard and wake it up, it will connect with crappy signal to the main base station until it finally gives up and drops the connection, at which point it will reconnect, this time using the repeater.

Even with the limitations above, Apple's 'Extend this Network' is dramatically better than WDS was. Don't use WDS under any circumstances.
--
-Ryan
I use Linux, OS X, iOS and Windows. Let the OS wars die.

reply to HiVolt
If there's any way you can run a cable to it I would go with that approach instead.
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PRescott7-2097

Newer powerline networking boxes are pretty good. I use a couple and get a more stable connection over 802.11n.

reply to HiVolt
FYI, the new Airport Expresses are Simultaneous Dual Band.

The question isn't if they're simultaneous dual band but rather will they extend both bands of an existing dual band network, or can you only pick one or the other. Do the newest ones allow you to choose 2 SSIDs in the extend a network configuration?

reply to HiVolt
No, when extending a network you can only extend one SSID. However, if you have not split the network names then just as Daemon was explaining it should extend both frequencies.

reply to kitsune

reply to joako

reply to joako

reply to kitsune

reply to HiVolt

reply to skeechan
A great point

I use a Netgear Powerline kit (the "200Mbit Media" version) to bring my ethernet downstairs where I have my Time Capsule setup with the same SSID & password as my Airport Extreme upstairs. The airport extreme does DHCP for my entire network and acts as the router while the Time Capsule just lets me walk around seamlessly with my wifi devices and reduces the performance hit I used to take after going past so many walls and such. Real work performance I get ~9Mbps sustained at max - so a bit under 1/3 of the theoretical max speed but it's acceptable for streaming media still (I stream 1080p content from my server upstairs to an AppleTV 3rd gen downstairs w/ no problem).

reply to kitsune

reply to Count Zero
I have the AV500s and close I get about 40Mb, far away about 15Mb. There is supposed to be a successor to the current homeplug generation that will (I guess) significantly improve throughput.

Not sure they had those 3yrs ago when I got mine. Either way they're really truly "plug and forget" and they make bringing Ethernet to distant parts of the house easy. It's nice that they have encryption too.

reply to joako