[P1] Wireless routers compatible with Airport

[david]

On 12/30/03 9:52 PM, "David Crump" <davecrump at mac.com> wrote:

> I am wondering where I can find out what wireless routers are compatible with
> airport.  I have an iBook with an AirPort card, and have been waiting until I
> can afford the AirPort Base Station.  However, I keep seeing 802.11b certified
> wireless routers from companies like D-Link and Belkin advertised for very
> reasonable prices.  Can any of these be used with my iBook? (I realize that if
> they are 802.11b, they should work, but I have no PC or desktop mac to
> configure them with.  Only my iBook.)
 
> Am I stuck with shelling out the ridiculous price they are charging for an
> Airport Base station? Even used ones on Ebay are still double the going price
> for a PC wireless router.  I can understand paying a premium if the Apple
> solution is easier to use, but not three times the cost.

Probably the biggest reason I'm a Mac user is that Apple has a genius for
making technology (often quite complex technology) easy to use. Setting up
the airport station is really a no brainer for even the most technologically
non-savvy person. The software for configuring the base station is easy to
use, upgrading the firmware is easy to do, and configuring the airport card
is easy to do.

Other base stations aren't as easy to set up. Most are configured using the
browser - you connect the station to your computer with an ethernet cable,
launch your browser, and type in an IP address. Configuring them isn't that
much harder than configuring Apple's base station - in most cases.

There is one big gotcha to not buying from Apple. There's no such thing as
an 802.11b Windows only router - but if you need to talk to someone in tech
support that person is almost certainly going to be a Windows tech and will
be clueless about the Mac. I've heard some wonderfully bizarre things come
out of the mouths of Windows-centric tech support people.

Would I buy a base station from someone other than Apple? Yep - without
hesitation. But I'm in the biz and have lots of experience. If you have no
patience, if you turn to putty when you talk to a tech support person,
and/or you just aren't confident then spending the extra to get an Apple
base station is worth it.