Best 802.11n/g setup with oldish Apple networking equipment?
November 27, 2010 3:01 PM   Subscribe

I'd like to reconfigure my Apple-based home network to give 802.11n clients The Very Best in connection speeds while still supporting 802.11g devices on the same network. How can I do this?

Knowledge level: intermediate.

Here's the setup.

Hardware:

- Apple Time Capsule 802.11n (*not* the dual-band model; USB hard drive attached which includes iTunes library for 802.11g MacBook)
- Apple Airport Express 802.11g (w/USB printer, shared on network)
- Apple Airport Express 802.11g (largely unused)

Computers/devices:

- MacBook 802.11g
- iPod touch 802.11g
- MacBook 802.11n
- iPad 802.11n
- Apple TV 802.11n

Right now, all of these devices are on one network. I'd rather not have the g devices connect to a separate network if I can help it.

So, I'd like to set things up to give the n devices the fullest possible throughput; I'm particularly interested in getting this in place for Netflix streaming on the Apple TV.

The n devices are usually not far away from the Time Capsule, so I'm not too concerned about signal strength. The unused Express can be moved pretty easily; the one with the printer attached can not.

My theory is that I could take the unused Airport Express and hardwire it into an ethernet port of the Time Capsule. Then it could bridge to the network (via WDS?) and take care of g clients at the slower speed.

Is that correct?

Buying additional hardware isn't an option; I'd like to work with what I've got.

If you need more details, please ask. Thanks.
posted by hijinx to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)
 
Response by poster: Also, the Time Capsule is currently broadcasting support for both n and g on the 2.4GHz band.
posted by hijinx at 3:08 PM on November 27, 2010


Best answer: your idea is mostly there - instead of doing WDS (which won't do what you want it to do - that "extends" the network, so all your G stuff will still be competing with the N stuff), create a separate network on a totally different channel with the Airport Express. you'll want to make sure the channels are far apart (so, say, if your N stuff is on 1, use 10 for the G network) so they don't conflict with each other. for my home network, I went the extra step of making my N router not broadcast its name, so N devices have to be told what it is. (this is just to make sure G stuff doesn't hop on the N network by accident.) this works pretty well for me.
posted by mrg at 3:17 PM on November 27, 2010


Response by poster: Couple of questions on that.

Will the printer be available to both the g and n networks? And will the MacBook g be able to see the USB hard drive (iTunes library) on the Time Capsule n? I'm guessing no, right?
posted by hijinx at 3:31 PM on November 27, 2010


It'd be a pain to cross subnets for devices, yes.

To be honest, I got around this issue by gifting my older Airport Extreme that didn't have dual band support to my parents and buying a new Time Capsule that did have that feature. If there's any way you can swing it financially by selling your current Time Capsule or passing it along, it's the most painless option.
posted by mikeh at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2010


Best answer: mikeh: "It'd be a pain to cross subnets for devices, yes."

But you don't need to have different subnets - you just set up the Airport Express as a straight bridge to the wired network. With NAT & DHCP disabled in the AE, wireless client get an IP address on the wired network's subnet from its DHCP server.

Agree that the 'simplest' (where lack of money isn't an added complexity ;-) way is to buy a new dual-band Time Capsule or Airport Extreme.
posted by Pinback at 8:21 PM on November 27, 2010


Best answer: We have the kind of setup you're looking for. I see two networks at home, whiterose_n and whiterose_air. Whiterose_n gives us n for our laptops and our Apple TV, while whiterose_air gives us g for our iPhones. We also have a Brother printer on the network and I know my husband can print from his iPhone to it, so the networks are properly bridged. I know my husband has both an Airport with n and an older Airport with g to achieve his setup. I understand that new hardware is not an option; I'm just telling you what what we use to get the results you want.

Feel free to drop me a Memail if you want me to put you in touch with my husband. He's the network engineer at our house.
posted by immlass at 10:41 PM on November 27, 2010


I do this. I have a Linksys WRT54G running a 802.11b/g network. It doesn't run a DHCP server. I give it a static IP so i can find it easily. It's plugged in to my other router, which is connected to the net and runs a 802.11n network. Everything works.
posted by chunking express at 3:50 PM on November 28, 2010


That said, I'm not sure you can do this with your airport expresses.
posted by chunking express at 3:51 PM on November 28, 2010


If you decide to upgrade your network, you should consider an Airport Extreme router. I picked up a refurb for half price on Amazon and I'm glad I did. Airport Extreme is a true "dual band" router, meaning it can serve up both b/g AND n at the same time. Some routers can only do one at a time (even though they advertise them as being dual band they don't mean dual at the same time).
posted by 2oh1 at 4:04 PM on November 28, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks, all. This is starting to look really muddy and it might just be easiest for me to save the pennies for n equipment... or get a very long ethernet cable for the Apple TV.

This past weekend, I tried a new setup. I plugged the 802.11g Express into the Time Capsule via ethernet, and let that broadcast a new, g-only network. The complication: the other g Express has the house's main printer.

I tried setting up the plugged-in Express as a WDS main with the printer Express as a WDS relay (and remote) on the g network. Neither worked; the printer and Express were both invisible to the g network.

I did *not* yet try just letting the g network be a plain ol' wifi network without WDS.

On the n network, I was able to see the wired-in g Express just fine. But I'm thinking that the printer will be a sticking point, because even if I get past the visibility issue on the g network, I don't *think* the n network will ever be able to print to it. Is that right?

I appreciate the comments thus far. This has been slightly more complicated than I thought it would be.
posted by hijinx at 7:30 AM on November 29, 2010


Response by poster: All right - I've got it working!

The solution was, in fact, for me to not use WDS on the g network. So the setup is:

* Time Capsule (n) connected to DSL modem, broadcasting n-only network
* Airport Express (g) connected to Time Capsule as a bridge w/no DHCP handouts, broadcasting g-only network
* Airport Express (g) w/printer extending g-only network

The printer on the g network works just fine on the n network. As a bonus, I can fully configure the Time Capsule from my g MacBook with AirPort Utility - a relief!

(The only downside is that I'm still experiencing Netflix issues with the Apple TV, which I'd hoped to resolve with this - but that's another topic.)

If anyone is interested in seeing a diagram of this setup before/after (perhaps the most boring diagram ever,) have a look.
posted by hijinx at 4:38 AM on November 30, 2010


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