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September 9, 2010 7:56 AM Subscribe
is it worth buying a new airport?
i have an airport extreme base station from about 6.5 years ago. i just bought a new macbook pro. the interwebs seem to work plenty fast to me now that i'm not using a 6.5 year old computer. but is it worth spending the extra money for a new airport extreme base station? is that much faster?
i have an airport extreme base station from about 6.5 years ago. i just bought a new macbook pro. the interwebs seem to work plenty fast to me now that i'm not using a 6.5 year old computer. but is it worth spending the extra money for a new airport extreme base station? is that much faster?
Well, the new Airports have 802.11n, which has about 10x the throughput as the 802.11g that your Airport Extreme uses (600 Mbit/sec, vs 54 Mbit/sec).
But, Verizon FIOS, for example, offers 15, 25, and 50 Mbit/sec speeds, and 802.11g already outstrips that. So, if you do a lot of data transfer between computers or servers in your house, then you'd see a difference, but probably not a big difference just connecting to the Internet.
posted by The Michael The at 8:03 AM on September 9, 2010
But, Verizon FIOS, for example, offers 15, 25, and 50 Mbit/sec speeds, and 802.11g already outstrips that. So, if you do a lot of data transfer between computers or servers in your house, then you'd see a difference, but probably not a big difference just connecting to the Internet.
posted by The Michael The at 8:03 AM on September 9, 2010
Having had both, I'll say that there's not a huge difference. If something happens to your current Airport and it breaks, you might consider getting one of the new ones if you can find a good deal -- they're really nice but sort of expensive. However, if there's nothing wrong with the router you have at the moment I don't see why you should bother getting a new one.
posted by malthas at 8:07 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by malthas at 8:07 AM on September 9, 2010
Building on The Michael's response, it depends a bit on what you use your network for. I use my home network for connecting to the internet as well as serving video/music throughout my apartment. HD video can really clog up a network, so you're going to want as wide a pipe as possible if you plan to stream video...
But if you're doing basic downloading, facebooking and Itunesing, your current router is probably fine.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:09 AM on September 9, 2010
But if you're doing basic downloading, facebooking and Itunesing, your current router is probably fine.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:09 AM on September 9, 2010
Response by poster: thanks for the answers so far!
i work from home (i'm a designer) so i mainly use the internet to surf the web and upload/download files from clients. i also am planning to stream a lot of videos and movies onto my computer now that i actually can.
i was thinking i wouldn't get the new router until i read the part about streaming video that BobbyVan wrote. because of this, should i just go ahead and get the new router?
posted by violetk at 8:16 AM on September 9, 2010
i work from home (i'm a designer) so i mainly use the internet to surf the web and upload/download files from clients. i also am planning to stream a lot of videos and movies onto my computer now that i actually can.
i was thinking i wouldn't get the new router until i read the part about streaming video that BobbyVan wrote. because of this, should i just go ahead and get the new router?
posted by violetk at 8:16 AM on September 9, 2010
Generic wifi is fine for generic surfing. Worried about moving large amounts of data around and not waiting a long time (e.g., backing up the 4 GB of photos you took this weekend or editing videos on one workstation and then saving them to a NAS or streaming 1080p to several clients at once)? Gigabit. Bond channels if you really need to.
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:18 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:18 AM on September 9, 2010
i was thinking i wouldn't get the new router until i read the part about streaming video that BobbyVan wrote. because of this, should i just go ahead and get the new router?
If by "streaming", you mean "from the web to your computer", then no, 802.11n won't help. If you're streaming audio and video between machines on your network (from, say, your computer to an Xbox/PS3/MediaCenter), then it's probably worth it.
Also worth noting that the signal strength of the 802.11n antenna is supposed to be significantly better than the 802.11g ones. If you've got a weak/spotty signal in parts of your home, it may be worth it for that.
posted by mkultra at 8:24 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
If by "streaming", you mean "from the web to your computer", then no, 802.11n won't help. If you're streaming audio and video between machines on your network (from, say, your computer to an Xbox/PS3/MediaCenter), then it's probably worth it.
Also worth noting that the signal strength of the 802.11n antenna is supposed to be significantly better than the 802.11g ones. If you've got a weak/spotty signal in parts of your home, it may be worth it for that.
posted by mkultra at 8:24 AM on September 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
i was thinking i wouldn't get the new router until i read the part about streaming video that BobbyVan wrote. because of this, should i just go ahead and get the new router?
Are you streaming videos from the Internet or from other devices in your home network? If the former, a newer/faster router won't matter.
posted by kmz at 8:25 AM on September 9, 2010
Are you streaming videos from the Internet or from other devices in your home network? If the former, a newer/faster router won't matter.
posted by kmz at 8:25 AM on September 9, 2010
I upgraded my parents' router from the old airport extreme to the new one -- basically the same situation you are describing. The only reason I did so was to improve the range of their wifi signal (which it did) -- their internet speeds were unchanged for the reasons already described above. But thanks to wireless-n, they now get a signal where previously they didn't, and that was the core reason behind the upgrade.
Unless you are having problems with your wifi signal, it's probably not worth your money to upgrade at this point.
posted by modernnomad at 8:32 AM on September 9, 2010
Unless you are having problems with your wifi signal, it's probably not worth your money to upgrade at this point.
posted by modernnomad at 8:32 AM on September 9, 2010
One of the things I like about my recent vintage Airport Extreme is you can set your network up to use the relatively uncrowded 5Ghz bandwidth which is nice if you live near a place with 20+ wifi network in range. I bought mine to stream and do wireless Time Machine backups. The difference between N and G speeds makes that possible.
posted by birdherder at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by birdherder at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2010
Yeah, I should have been more clear in my earlier response. If you're streaming HD video from one networked device (computer hard drive, Xbox 360, etc) to another, you're going to want an n-wireless router. If you're streaming directly from the web, it's doubtful that your internet connection is faster than your router (assuming it's G-wireless), so upgrading the router wouldn't really speed things up.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:45 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by BobbyVan at 8:45 AM on September 9, 2010
Typically, your Internet connection is much slower than 802.11b or g. So getting an n router wouldn't make the Internet connection faster, unless the old router is broken in some way. (Or the new one has a better antenna, etc.)
If you are copying files between machines that are both on your Wifi network, then n will make a huge difference. But a 5 cent Ethernet cable is even better.
posted by jrockway at 8:56 AM on September 9, 2010
If you are copying files between machines that are both on your Wifi network, then n will make a huge difference. But a 5 cent Ethernet cable is even better.
posted by jrockway at 8:56 AM on September 9, 2010
Short answer: YES! We replaced our vintage Aiport base station with the latest model and what an improvement! I'm getting better signal coverage and for newer Mac hardware, the ability to use the higher bandwidth (5GHz) is very much worth it!
posted by kuppajava at 10:14 AM on September 9, 2010
posted by kuppajava at 10:14 AM on September 9, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
In terms of speed, I can't say. I do know it has 802.11 n as well as b/g.
posted by TheBones at 8:02 AM on September 9, 2010