Your thoughts on home wireless networks?
[tags]Wireless, WiFi, Home networks, Apple, Airport, Airport Extreme[/tags]
Now that the house has sold, we’re thinking concretely about stuff we want to do with the new house once it’s completed. One thing we definitely want to do is set up a wireless network. The new house will be two stories plus a basement, and we want to be able to use the network from anywhere in the house. (Outside the house is not such a big deal.)
We will have broadband access via cable (like we do now) and the plan is to connect the cable to a wireless router. At this point the plan is to put the wireless connection in my study, which will be on the main floor in the back corner of the house. So we’d need a WAP that broadcasts strongly enough to go from there down to the basement and upstairs to the bedrooms. We’d prefer not to have to buy multiple WAP’s.
The Apple Airport Extreme seems to be quite capable of doing this (it claims a broadcast range of 150 feet), but it’s so hard to tell the reality from Apple’s advertising. Anybody have any experience with Airport Extreme or other wireless networks for home use?
We have an airport extreme in the house, 2 story, the base is upstairs at the front & we get OK reception downstairs in the back. Can’t testify about the basement.
At this point I’m leaning towards the AirPort Extreme for my house because it supports wirelessly printing to a USB printer.
A much, much, much cheaper router (Linksys, as low as $50 or so) would let all three of my Macs share the internet (iMac wired; laptops wireless), but I’m not clear on what the printing logistics would be. If I could have my iMac act as a print server and handle printing on behalf of the laptops, I’d be willing to go with the cheap router. But if I’d need to add on a $80 wireless print server, we’re getting closer to the $180 price of AirPort Extreme — and I would be certain that AirPort Extreme would play nicely with the Macs with a minimum of fuss.
AirPort Extreme has 32mW of power; at macwireless.com they sell wireless routers with up to 200mW.
If printing is not an issue for you, then you have more options.
Yes, I have been shopping for way too many gadgets and gizmos lately. Let me know what you get and whether you’re happy with it.
If memory serves, isn’t AirPort Extreme nothing more than 802.11g? If that’s the case, couldn’t you just get a high end “g” router and have all your bases covered? I’ve been using a Belkin router with both macs and PC’s on it for a couple years now and never had a compatibility problem. Printing and file-sharing I get mixed results. Printing can be done through an intermediary machine, however when using both macs and PCs I’ve found the mac to be a more reliable print server.
Since you will be building your house, have you thought about adding a few network drops in a few rooms? Even with a wireless network, regular old drops can be very useful from time to time.
Also, one more side note: Jami and I switched from Cable to DSL and love it. It’s half the price and both upstream and downstream speeds are considerably faster (1.5 to 2 times!). I understand that cable speeds can vary from location to location, so “results may vary,” but if you’re tired of Comcast eating away at your bank account, you may wanna check it out!
If you’re building the house from scratch, why not hardwire every room for ethernet? I love wireless, but it’s never going to touch the speed of a 100/1000 ethernet connection. And even the best wifi I’ve used (a Dlink wireless G router) drops speed dramatically after going through a few walls.
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We have an airport base. It works well from everywhere in the house, including over the garage which isn’t connected to the house, with most of our computers. The real question about a base is not will it reach, but will your computers pick it up.
I don’t know what you have (or actually, truth be told, what we have), but my sons’ iBooks work, my MacBook works, and my husband’s G3 work. But whatever I used to have, that was before the G3 didn’t. It could only get wireless in one room downstairs and two rooms upstairs. My hubby says that used to you could get external pickups to help with that. I don’t know if you still can. (If you can, why did I get a MacBook?)
He also says that the best thing you can do is go to your new house, after the electric is in but before they drywall, and run wire to every room. It’s not hard to do; you don’t have to put the ends on till later if you don’t want to; and all the other stuff shows you where the wires are going anyway. That’s what hubby’s best friend did (also a Mac enthusiast) and he’s been very happy. The cables are faster than airport.
Make good choices!
Wiring your house for LAN is not a bad idea but you’ll still want wireless for sitting outside with the laptop. Believe me, on a nice summer afternoon or evening, it’s worth it.
It looks like you’ve gotten a lot of input on brands (I’m using Belkin at home) but I do have one additional bit of advice: if you are using cordless phones, you may find that 2.8GHz wi-fi interferes with them. I ended up getting new 5.8GHz cordless phones and that solved my phone reception problem.
Jim – We don’t have any landline phones, but use cellphones instead. Are there any problems with reception when you’re using a wireless network and cell phones? I hope that’s not too dumb of a question.