[P1] Airport Express question

[Reid Conti]

Mike, 

Yeah, that totally helps.  I understand, and I suspect the reason you
can "seamlessly" roam between base stations when they're wired/same
SSID/same channel is due to the client's network hardware, and has
nothing to do with any cooperation between base stations :)

This is no hugely big deal, I'm only living in the current place for 4
more weeks anyway.  In fact I might be able to move the cable modem
out here (living room), but last time I checked it only worked on ONE
of our three cable drops! :)

In the future I'll ditch the linksys that needs to be powercycled
every day or two to keep the wireless running, and either get a second
AE, or an AEBS.  Too bad the base stations still don't have onboard
switches, but i no longer need multiple wired devices (network printer
only), and now the AEBS has a 100mbit LAN port, i can always hook up
an external switch...

Looking forward to traveling with the AE, gonna be in Europe for 4
months... presto wireless connection anywhere I have an ethernet jack!
 Thank god for apple and their world power kits, so i won't have to
have a huge ugly block barely hanging on for dear life out of the
outlet.

- reid

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 21:48:04 -0500, Mike Wallinga <mwallinga at mailup.net> wrote:
> Hi Reid,
> 
> Brian Pearce already replied with the correct answer (as far as both he
> and I know, anyway!), but I'm in a talkative mood today, so I thought
> I'd expand a little:
> 
> The Airport Express can only work as a repeater with other Apple branded
> wireless products.  LinkSys, D-Link, and probably other networking
> companies also offer wireless repeater products (although not with the
> same options for music sharing and such that the Airport Express does),
> and the also will work only with wireless products from the same
> company.  As I understand it, this is because the WDS protocol that
> Brian mentioned is not part of the 802.11 spec, so each company's
> products implement the protocol just differently enough that they won't
> work with products from other companies.
> 
> Your assessment of what Mr. Pogue was referring to in his article is
> correct - that technique requires multiple WIRED base stations.  If you
> have, say, an Airport base station and a Linksys base station, you
> should be able to set up one network transparently by setting the SSID
> and channel to the same thing on both of them, but only if they're both
> wired to the network.
> 
> If you can run cable to the other room and hook up the Airport Express
> to the network using its ethernet port, then I think you could be in
> business.  But otherwise, I think you're out of luck.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> Mike W.
> 
> 
> 
> Reid Conti wrote:
> > Hope someone can help me with this.  I see that the Airport Express
> > can work with an Airport Base Station or Airport Extreme Base Station,
> > without being physically wired.  So it can act like a repeater, and
> > then be used to output your music to the local speakers, no matter
> > which base station you're actually closest to (and therefore using).
> >
> > Correct?
> >
> > Now can it do the same thing with other brand base stations?
> >
> > I found out recently through David Pogue's column that you can make a
> > multi-node network by simply setting the SSID and channel of multiple
> > base stations to the same channel -- cool!  So it doesn't matter what
> > brand you use, according to him.  But I think this is only when base
> > stations both have wired connections, it didn't address the issue of
> > acting like a repeater (or, in my mind, a bridge).
> >
> > Anybody know?
> >
> > Looking to pick one up ASAP, but I have a Linksys BEFW11S4 router and
> > my speakers are in the other room.. I'd like to be able to use the AE
> > to play music wirelessly, but don't want to have to hop to a wireless
> > network with no internat access to play music :)
> >
> > Hopefully my 802.11b gear is fast enough anyway...
> >
> > - reid
> 
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