Airport Express Base Station...and Fios

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Airport Express Base Station...and Fios

I recently posted a topic about hooking up my airport express to extend the range of our landlord's wireless Fios (with permission). I was advised to physically connect the Airport Express to the Fios router in the landlord's home. This probably won't work out, for a variety of reasons. The option to connect via our circuitry is out of the question as well because we are on separate breakers.

My "Plan B" now, is to see if I can (instead of buying direct burial Cat5 cables and running them across the yard) purchase an Airport Base Station, connect that to the Fios router (with an ethernet cable), bring it towards the edge of her home, and emit a signal out towards our apartment in the back where the Airport Express can pick up on and extend the range of its compatible base station.

Will this work????

As always, any help from the wise is much MUCH appreciated.

Thank you kindly.

iMac & Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 31, 2010 6:57 PM

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Answer 1

mgrink Author

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Mar 31, 2010 7:07 PM in response to mgrink

Woops - I meant...hook up a Airport EXTREME Base Station to the Fios router, place THAT at the edge of the house, and emit a signal across the yard towards the Airport EXPRESS Range extender.

Will THAT work???

Sorry for any confusion.

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Answer 2

Mar 31, 2010 7:14 PM in response to mgrink

Welcome to the discussions!

Can you tell us approximately how far the signal will need to travel and how many walls / obstructions will be in the signal path?

Are the outer walls brick or another type of surface?

Any other additional information about the structures that you could provide would be helpful in trying to give you a realistic prediction of success before you begin.

Will you be trying to download heavier material like video and music, or will the wireless be used for basic email and browsing?

Bottom line....these types of things tend to be "iffy" and it may not be possible to know how well it may work in advance until you try.

For that reason, it would be a good idea to get a clear understanding of the store's return/credit policies in case things don't work as hoped.

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Answer 3

mgrink Author

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Mar 31, 2010 7:37 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Thanks for the quick response.

Actually, we can pick up part of the current signal from her wirleess router that is in her home, but its only a couple bars by the window. Her router is only about 30 feet away from our apartment out back, disrupted by one wood frame wall in her home, one brick wall for the outside of her home, and the vinyl siding and wood frame wall with insulation for our apartment.

I figure, if we can put the Airport Extreme base station at the edge of her home PLUS the Airport Express enhancing that signal, we should be able to pick it up much much more (considering we can already pick up a weak signal). What do you think? And how feasible is it to do set up for the Extreme and the Express with the Fios?

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Answer 4

Mar 31, 2010 8:02 PM in response to mgrink

The AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express both broadcast the same signal power level, so there would be no real advantage to using the AirPort Extreme unless you also need ethernet ports for connections at the AirPort Extreme location.

I think there is a good chance that the AirPort Extreme / AirPort Express combination or alternately, (and less expensive) an Airport Express / AirPort Express setup will provide you with a stable wireless signal.

In summary, you will connect an ethernet cable from one of the available LAN ports on the Fios router to the WAN port on either the AirPort Express (AX) or AirPort Extreme (AEBS). This device would be configured to "create a wireless network" with the option enabled to "allow this network to be extended". Call this your "sending" device.

An AirPort Express will be configured to "extend a wireless network". In other words, call it the "extender". This will provide the wireless signal in your residence and also an ethernet connection point if needed. You will want to position this as high as possible to help wireless coverage.

You may need to experiment a bit with the location of the "sending" and "extending" devices. Ideally they will be as close as possible and as high as possible to provide good wireless coverage.

We can provide step by step configuration instructions if you want them. Let us know on your questions.

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Answer 5

mgrink Author

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Apr 1, 2010 4:15 AM in response to mgrink

Thanks for the help! I will work on this once I get the Extreme.

-Mike

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Answer 6

Apr 1, 2010 5:17 AM in response to mgrink

+I will work on this once I get the Extreme.+

If you already have an AirPort Express, check to make sure that it is the newer 802.11n version as the earlier versions will not deliver the "extend" feature.

Look for Model # A1264 on the side of the device. That is the one you want.

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