Hi Anders, Long message ahead. I have replied inline for clarity.
On 28 Dec 2015, at 20:46, Anders Holmberg <[email protected]> wrote: > Now when answering your message its a dsl modem with router built-in. > I have that as a nat and use the airport extreme as a bridge. > Maybe i should try to reverse the setting so that my modem is a bridge and my > airport is a nat. Yeah, if you can. Lets AirPort handle your public IP address, NAT, port forwarding, and all that. However, maybe not the best option if your DSL modem is actually a better router because it handles your DSL connection at full frame sizes, without PPPoE overhead. In my experience though, most ISP routers are horribly outperformed by hardware you get yourself, including AirPort. It may even not be possible, for example PPPoA generally cannot be bridged without special hardware, forcing you to use your “Modem” as your NAT router. You will need to investigate your options. If you don’t mind, buy another modem; I recommend Draytek v130. This will in fact bridge PPPoA, and pass PPP directly through to AirPort as PPPoE. Now put your username/password into AirPort, and get a very nice, reliable setup, entirely controlled by AirPort. This is a great way to turn any legacy DSL connection into Ethernet, and make AirPort work with any connection type. These babies even support baby jumbo, so if you ever get an alternative router to AirPort that knows how to handle large packets, it need only support an Ethernet port to give you the full capacity of your DSL/VDSL connection. I use one now; they’re very sweet. > But how will i go with my other airport base stations i have? > I have two airport express. > Do i have to set them up to or will they automatically join the network? Tell them to “Join” your existing network. You can do this during the initial setup process; zap them with AirPort Utility to factory settings and you’ll be asked how to configure them. “Joining” an AirPort network will see your Express configured as a WDS replicator. You can then use the Ethernet ports on your Express to attach devices to your network, in addition of course to using it as a wireless extender and, optionally, AirPlay receiver and print server. Being able to wirelessly connect ethernet-equipped devices to your network is way cool. :) There is an important catch I think you should understand, though. Your wireless devices connected by way of the receiver are only capable of “N” speeds. Moreover, only half of “N” speeds, theoretically. Your bandwidth is chopped into half because the signal is now taking two hops, and the Express is not yet an AC-capable device. A hidden preference, accessible only with the older AirPort Utility 5.6 available for Windows, can fix it so wireless clients do not associate with your Express devices, but this would of course render them rather useless as wireless extenders; they will then only be Ethernet extenders. If you are finding that your speeds are particularly poor because of your Express extenders, and you really need your extenders to get the desired coverage, and you have no other means to wire your AirPort units together (Ethernet, HomePlug, etc), and perhaps because they are often providing the best signal at any given time, then I can only suggest you tell your Extreme to broadcast separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, and connect only your most critical high-throughput devices to the Extreme on 5 GHz, leaving the remainder behind on 2.4 GHz at “N” speeds, extended by your AirPort Express, and ensuring that your speed-critical devices are never dragged down to “N” speeds. It’s either that, or get more AirPort Extremes as extenders to push out your AC network. > I have a macbook which does not use an ethernet port. > If i buy a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor would this in any case decrease > the speed? The Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor is not as high-performance as one might hope, but it will, in most cases, smash the performance of any wireless networks, including AC networks. It’s always preferable to wireless just for reliability. AC is supposed to be able to reach close to gigabit speed, but it is a rare thing indeed, if for no other reason than that most devices don’t have the radios for it. You can configure wired and wireless connections on the same Mac. OS X uses the correct one. Plug in when you can. There were a few reports of specific brands of modems not negotiating the correct speed with AirPort. These should be very rare and are abnormal. AirPort Extreme has a gigabit port on the outside, and gigabit ports on the inside. Cable should not give you any trouble. I can confirm that you should get at least 200 Mb/s. -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
