[moandjim]

Please forgive the redundancy; there is a partial post elsewhere.
I have a mixed Mac and PC hard wired network. I want to go wireless with a macbook pro, using the n protocol. My router is a linksys WRT54G with the wireless turned off. I have stone walls around the router and adjacent cable modem with at least one other stone wall between it and the family room about 40 feet away. I have ethernet switches in both rooms and a Sonos wireless mesh network which runs on 2.4ghz channels, like one cordless phone. I am enticed by airport extreme's ease of setup, 5ghz ability, and "n" native ability, but know I will need some access point/extender. I am also considering tuning on the router's wireless and adding two linksys access points which can be cabled to the network (and configured no doubt after several call to linksys). So, my question is, would I be able to use two airport extremes on the network, cabled together through the network? Also-- should I connect my cable modem to the extreme and then connect from the AExtreme switch to the router, or will that screw up the rest of the network?
Sorry to be long winded. Thanks for any help.
JMD

[smax013]

You should be able to do it. Here is a document for setting up a WDS network with Airport basestations.
An Airport Extreme has a built-in switch. Thus, I would say if you go the Airport Extreme router, then you should just dump the Linksys router. If you need more ports, then get a basic network switch...they are fairly cheap. If you use the router as a switch, then you may have to jigger with the settings (might not...don't really know for sure...depends on how you do the cabling/ports).

[moandjim]

Thanks for the reply. I don't want it as a WDS, tho'. I would need three AExtremes to bridge the distance well with the stone work. What I want is to cable the second AE to a switch further down the network. The referenced doc doesn't address that.
JMD

[smax013]

I am not sure that I understand what you mean when you say you want to "cable the second AE to a switch further down the network". Are you talking about bringing the two AEs closer together and then running a cable from the AE to a switch at the location where you need a connection? Or something else?
And keep in mind that 802.11n in general has better range than previous flavors of 802.11. So, it might be that it would work with 2 AEs.

[moandjim]

Thanks again. My network is hard wired from a den where a NAS, a cable modem and two computers are attached to the router as well as a cable to the family room about 40 feet away which is attached to a switch with two more computers and a Sonos sound system. There are three 18 inch thick stone walls (I checked) between the two rooms. Our 2.4 ghz cordless phone does not have strong signal in the den, and it is one stone wall short of the family room, so I don't think the signal will be sufficient for the AExtremes to communicate well wirelessly. I would rather attach the second AE to the switch in the family room so it would get back to the cable modem via wire rather than wirelessly from the other (nearly out of range) AE, effectively acting as a second access point independent of the first AE.
I also wonder if the AE will handle all the wired and sonos traffic (when it is replacing the wrt54g with an additional switch), but I assume it would as a router.
JMD

[smax013]

Quote:

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Thanks again. My network is hard wired from a den where a NAS, a cable modem and two computers are attached to the router as well as a cable to the family room about 40 feet away which is attached to a switch with two more computers and a Sonos sound system. There are three 18 inch thick stone walls (I checked) between the two rooms. Our 2.4 ghz cordless phone does not have strong signal in the den, and it is one stone wall short of the family room, so I don't think the signal will be sufficient for the AExtremes to communicate well wirelessly. I would rather attach the second AE to the switch in the family room so it would get back to the cable modem via wire rather than wirelessly from the other (nearly out of range) AE, effectively acting as a second access point independent of the first AE.
I also wonder if the AE will handle all the wired and sonos traffic (when it is replacing the wrt54g with an additional switch), but I assume it would as a router.
JMD

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It should not be a problem other than it would likely have to be setup as a seperate WiFi network. But, it should be no problem to set it up as just an access point. If you don't need the 802.11n speeds for that access point, you could go with a Airport Express and save some money, but it is only 802.11g.
If you do go with two Airport Extremes, I would suggest trying to setup WDS with them first. It might work. Supposedly, 802.11n have better range and signal strength then previous flavors of WiFi...so maybe it can bridge the distance even going through a stone wall. My house has a rather significant masonry chimney between where I have the Linksys 802.11g router and my living room. It would work with my MacBook Pro, but barely. I got a replacement atenna with more gain and that helped quite a bit. The distance is also about 30 to 40 feet and the masonry chimney is at least two wythes of likely 6 to 8 inch CMU.

[moandjim]

Thanks for all your input, smax.

[smax013]

Oh, if you go with the two WiFi network option, then you could just use your current router in the second room just like you would an AE Basestation and further save $$$ over even an Airport Express.
The only problem with EITHER the router or the Airport Extreme or Express as a second access point is the built-in router function. Because of the NAT router function, anything that uses that WiFi network will be "behind" another firewall from the rest of your network. So, unless you configure your router to pass through stuff (i.e. effectively turn off the NAT router function somehow), you might encounter some trouble transfering some stuff from a computer using that WiFi network. This is why a WDS network or getting a plain vanilla access point might be better.

[moandjim]

I just found the doc I needed on apple.
http://manuals.info....om/en/DesigningAirPortNetworks[u]UsingAirPort_Utility.pdf.
The only thing I don't get is naming the subnet, as I've never done that part before; it will probably be fine. At any rate, you just set them up in bridge mode and they can connect through the ethernet LAN. I think I would go that route rather than dumping my router and starting from scratch... I have such a complicated (for me) set up that is really stable and I don't fiddle with it enough to be really good at trouble shooting if there is a problem.
JMD

[smax013]

Good luck. Let us know how it worked out. I am kind of curious (I don't have a need to play with multiple wireless access points, but would like to "see" how well it works).