Two Airport Extreme's -- Possible to extend wireless & maintain gigabit LAN Speeds?

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Two Airport Extreme's -- Possible to extend wireless & maintain gigabit LAN Speeds?

Hi everyone.

I'm moving to a new place and mulling over the best way to wire up a home office. I have two airport extremes (5gth gen) and was hoping that I would be able to extend the wireless network from Airport A to Airport B and still maintain gigabit LAN speeds between all devices connected to Airport B. Basically, I am trying to avoid snaking Cat6 across my apartment to the home office. A rough illustration of what I plan on doing.

Does anyone have experience with a similar setup?

(1) Will I still be able to use the LAN ports on Airport B in this manner?
(2) If so, will I be able to maintain gigabit speeds between the two workstations and the NAS?

Thanks for any help or advice!

Posted on Mar 19, 2013 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

edex67

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Mar 19, 2013 9:23 AM in response to vicrhombus

(1) Yes.

(2) No, due to the limitations of 802.11n. Powerline adapters may increase the speed but it will never be as fast as a physical Cat6 cable.

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Answer 2

Mar 19, 2013 9:31 AM in response to vicrhombus

(1) Will I still be able to use the LAN ports on Airport B in this manner?

Yes, the Ethrenet ports are enabled on both A and B.

was hoping that I would be able to extend the wireless network from Airport A to Airport B and still maintain gigabit LAN speeds between all devices connected to Airport B

Unfortunately, hoping will not help here. If you think about it, the speed at the Ethernet ports on AirPort B will be limited to the speed or bandwidth of the wireless connection between AirPort A and B.

With an outstanding wireless connection between A and B.....which will literally require that you have line-of-sight between A and B.....you might be able to achieve something in the range of 250-270 Mbps.

If the wireless signal must pass through a few walls or a ceiling, it is more likely that the wireless signal arriving at B will be significantly slower....anywhere in the range of 100-200 Mbps.

The only way to maintain 1,000 Mbps or Gigabit speeds at the Ethernet ports on B would be to connect A and B using CAT5e or CAT6 Ethernet cabling. You can run Ethernet cabling up to about 330 feet, or 100 meters with virtually no signal loss.

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Answer 3

vicrhombus Author

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Mar 19, 2013 9:31 AM in response to edex67

Thanks for your help!

(2) I totally understand. I was hoping that Airport B would effectively just work as a gigabit switch for the LAN in the office. I realize that internet speeds would be bottlenecked due to the wireless bridge between two airports, but this instance I am more concerned with the network speeds between the three devices connected to Airport B.

Would these 3 boxes still talk to each other with gigabit speeds in this setup? I know that it would work if I just ran cable and wired a run-of-the-mill gigabit switch (of which i have plenty of lying around) to the new room, but I am somewhat unfamilar with how the Apple Airport functions when extending networks.

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Answer 4

edex67

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Mar 19, 2013 9:35 AM in response to vicrhombus

I think so, especially as the AirPort essentially has a "smart switch" built into it.

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Answer 5

vicrhombus Author

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Mar 19, 2013 9:36 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob,

Thanks for the detailed response!

I realize that this would bottleneck internet via the wireless bridge, but I am more curious about whether or not I could maintain gigabit speeds between the three boxes in the office (all wired into Airport B)....

The speeds between those three boxes are my primary concern here.

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Answer 6

Mar 19, 2013 9:37 AM in response to vicrhombus

I am more concerned with the network speeds between the three devices connected to Airport B.

If the devices are Gigabit capable, you will have Gigabit speeds on that portion of the network.

I am somewhat unfamilar with how the Apple Airport functions when extending networks.

The Airports function in Bridge Mode when they extend a network, so the Ethernet ports function exactly the same as an Ethernet switch.

But, if you are moving files from one device connected to B to another device connected to B, you need to remember that the signal must go all the way back to A and then back out again to B. So, the wireless connection will limit the speed at which devices will be able to move data from one to another at B.

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